Archive of Our Own ^beta

When the first notification from Muku comes through, Itaru ignores it. He’s technically on a bathroom break, which means he’s actually in his office building’s fire stairwell, phone open to the game he’s tiering in, trying to burn through his LP before anyone starts to care that he’s gone. This week’s target is Idlemeister, one of the few idol games out there which is still a rhythm game rather than a raising sim, and the SSR is his second best girl in the franchise. His second best girl, who also happens to be Banri’s second best girl, and they’ve been locked in a battle for first place as much out of petty competition than any real desire to be #1. They’re two days into the event out of ten, and Itaru’s finally about to pull ahead for the first time. Honestly, even with that incentive, he really shouldn’t be doing this here, hunched over in this terrible light. He should be reserving his tiering energy for home, letting himself trade wasted LP for comfort; for when he can change out of his suit, and hunker down with a pile of snacks, and slip on the wrist braces he’d bought back when he nearly got RSI trying to hit 39 million points for his best girl’s White Day event. But he also doesn’t exactly have a choice this time. What is he going to do, lose to Banri? He’d never live that down.

At the second notification from Muku, Itaru makes himself narrow his focus. At the third, he takes advantage of a momentary break in the beatmap to flick it away with his pinky. At the fourth, which opens with a link his eyes can’t help but stray to, he drops his combo. And when the fifth, sixth, and seventh hit his inbox in quick succession, he finally makes himself pause the song and flicks irritably over to LIME.

>Itaru! Sorry to bother you. I hope you’ve been having a good day at work.
>But I saw something earlier that, uh… you might want to know about? Or you might not??? Anyway.
>Do you know what OA3 is? Our All-Artistic Archive? It’s a site where people post works they’ve made about other people’s characters – fanfiction, basically. And I was browsing my usual tags, when I got curious, and... long story short, there’s a whole tag about Spring Troupe’s Knights of Round IV play. And it’s pretty big. Even by the standards of a stage adaptation of a popular franchise, I think.
>ourallartisticarchive.org/tags/Knights%20of%20Round%20IV%20THE%20STAGE%20-%20MANKAI%20Company
>And if you look in that tag, which has thousands of works, it’s nearly all Lancelot/Gawain. Like, specifically your Lancelot and Chikage’s Gawain. Because people seem to think there’s something going on between you, or at least, that the tension between your characters was informed by your real relationship. Isn’t that kind of funny?
>...Itaru?
>Actually haha oh jeez I shouldn’t have said anything? I thought it might make you laugh but now that I think about it it’s definitely weird for me to be reading fic in the first place and weirder for me to go looking to see if people had written fic about us and I definitely shouldn’t have let you know how big this fandom is and now you’re going to think I wrote some of it and basically I’m really sorry? Forget I mentioned this ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

That’s a lot to take in, and Itaru makes himself weigh it all up. First things first, though, he probably needs to stop Muku from spiralling.

>chill, lol
>you’re fine. i’m not mad or anything
>also i def don’t think you wrote any
>why would you have

And, having hopefully stemmed the tide of his fellow actor’s self-loathing, he’s left with the question of what any of it actually means.

Fanfiction, in and of itself, isn’t an alien concept to him. Admittedly, it isn’t something he’s ever really interacted with: it’s just never seemed like his speed, and if he has time to read stories about games he likes, he may as well just be gaming and living those stories properly. But what is alien is the idea that there’s fanfiction about him, or at least a character he’s played. Obviously, Mankai Company has a great deal of fans, but he had assumed they weren’t the kind to go off and write about it. Theatre fans are supposed to be classy, aren’t they?

Then again, the KniRoun games are pretty popular, and he’s absolutely seen fans writing about those. So he probably shouldn’t be all that surprised.

Itaru checks his connection, then taps on Muku’s link. He’s already on mobile data, rather than his office wi-fi; his superiors probably wouldn’t even care if he tiers on their network, so long as it’s during lunch or outside office hours, but he always feels a little itchy about the idea regardless. And, as the site loads, blue OA3 banner on a clean white background, he continues not to think about what his bosses would say if they knew what he was up to.

The header text proclaims that there are a good few thousand works in the “Knights of Round IV THE STAGE - Mankai Company” tag. He skims the first page, and notes that, while the stories there aren’t consistent in terms of character count or rating or secondary tags, just about every one of them is primarily tagged as “Lancelot/Gawain”. Time to go back to LIME and report as much.

>anyway i clicked the link
>you weren’t kidding about there being a lot
>do i just choose a random one

With that, Muku blinks back online.

>Oh! I’m so glad you’re not angry with me… I was really worried for a second.
>But I wouldn’t click a random fic, if I were you. The content and quality of a tag usually vary wildly, and even if a fic’s been tagged well, you still don’t quite know what you’re going to find.
>Rather than by date, maybe try sorting the tag by likes? That should give you a better idea of the fandom.

>kk

He caps that off with a thumbs-up sticker, just so Muku knows he’s busy rather than upset, and tabs back over to OA3. Reshuffling the tag by likes makes it shake out very differently, burying all the stories on the previous front page in favour of the most popular ones.

The first result, with nearly two thousand likes, is a fic that’s hundreds of thousands of characters long; longer than a novel, and marked as being complete. From the summary, it seems to be more or less a retelling of the stage play, but with a lot of the friendship between the protagonists remixed into overt romance (and with Gareth surviving his injuries, conveniently removing the major obstacle to a relationship between Lancelot and Gawain). And importantly, it doesn’t seem to have any sex in it. Not that Itaru’s deeply philosophically opposed to porn, or anything, but this whole concept is already a lot to take in. Steeling himself, he clicks.

It’s a relief to see the fic opens with a note from the author, so he doesn’t just have to dive right into things. Unfortunately, as he reads, it becomes increasingly less of one.

okay. SO. I’ve been into KniRoun for ages, but never actually written this ship until now? Lancelot/Gawain kinda missed me, even in KR4, until I saw the stage adaptation… and WOW 👀👀💦💦💦💦💦 the leads really sold me on it? their chemistry??? their sheer gay longing??? the way they were eyefucking that whole time???? so I HAD to write something for it ;; hope y’all enjoy sjkkdsjfkjdskjsdfj

That’s a whole lot to unpack. Speaking rationally, Chikage seems like a man capable of eyefucking. He has probably, at some point, eyefucked before. And he’s almost definitely regular fucked, a tangent which is no business of Itaru’s. (Really.) Regardless, the point is that it’s not the concept of eyefucking he takes offence to, or even the supposed originator of the eyefucking, but the context. Because the equation fizzles when Itaru contemplates Knights of Round IV; Knights of Round IV, and its classic Spring Troupe pure friendship between the leads, and – well, and himself, really. It’s true he’s no expert on relationships, but he’s fairly sure putting up with his nocturnal shut-in lifestyle doesn’t breed sexual tension.

(It hasn’t escaped him that eyefucking is a two-person activity. And it feels easier to refute that on Chikage’s end than on his own; to acknowledge, through his denial, that maybe he had been looking at his co-lead like a man drowning in a deep lake at the light above the surface. Because he can’t have been doing that. Yeah, Chikage’s attractive, but he refuses to let himself believe that he had – that he had been letting that thought spill out.)

Whatever. He screencaps the author’s note, crops out the rest of the page, and sends it to Muku.

>[img_5194.png]
>i see what you mean
>”eyefucking” sure is a description
>a description of a thing we def weren’t doing lmao

In return, Muku sends him a still from the KniRoun stage play; judging from the overlay, as well as the picture quality, it must have been illegally uploaded to NNB. Itaru recognises the image instantly, because it’s from the scene where Gawain compares Lancelot to a cat. Chikage’s expression is a little playful, a little fond, a little challenging – and, okay, admittedly, if he didn’t know the man in the photo at all, he’d maybe also have mistaken it for something thirsty.

>[image_1489.png]
>To be honest, I guess I can see why some people would have thought so.
>Also, I went and watched some cutscenes from KniRoun IV, and I think… you could probably read Lancelot and Gawain’s relationship as romantic, if you wanted to? And a lot of fans must have come into the play already shipping it.

Itaru flexes his fingers, then sets to refuting this blasphemy.

>what? no
>they’re just friends
>gawain’s the trusted senior who initiates lancelot into the round table and teaches him about the code of knighthood
>lancelot’s the talented newcomer who reminds gawain that chivalry is meaningless without personal conviction
>they def admire each other, and play off each other, and they push each other to do better, and the games are about them becoming trusted comrades as much as they are saving britannia
>but i don’t think they’re in love or anything
>and i think reading attraction into it kinda cheapens how important they are to each other
>plus that undermines lancelot’s arc with gwen, and how when he develops a crush on her in kniroun ii, it’s bc she represents a longing for something he can never have
>and how during the part in kniroun vii where lancelot, gawain, and percival go aid tristan, there’s a hidden sub-event where they get into a conversation about their types, and lancelot says he’s never really been into anyone
>and the sidequest in the third dlc mission of kniroun ix, where arthur tries to marry lancelot off to elaine, the daughter of the king of one of britannia’s former enemies, and lancelot panics
>the whole point of lancelot’s character arc, which always stays the same, is that he’s always looking beyond the horizon
>he’s a dreamer and a pure-hearted idealist, which is why he’s played off against gawain, whose ideals are grounded in reality and the code of chivalry
>they’re important comrades, but i think lancelot could never be happy with him romantically in the long term, especially knowing that he has to go back to avalon someday
>and that’s not even getting into all the reasons it doesn’t make sense for gawain either

Having delivered his accidental manifesto, Itaru exhales and relaxes his hands. It hadn’t occurred to him how many thoughts he has about this dynamic until just now, and he knows that if he had dropped that essay on most of the people in his life, they’d probably blank him. Thankfully, though, Mankai Company is full of weirdos, who are glad to see him having fun even if they don’t quite get it. And Muku in particular definitely isn’t the type to judge.

>Wow, Itaru. That was a lot of words.
>You really are a big fan of KniRoun!

>lmaoooo
>yeah it’s kinda important to me

>This might sound weird, but I’m glad you have something like that.
>Anyway. I still think you can’t dismiss this so easily.
>This might sound like a strange question, but you don’t read much shoujo manga, do you?
>The scene in IV after Gareth’s death, where Gawain says that if he’d never met Lancelot, he’d never have had to feel like this, reminded me of a scene in one of the later arcs of Your Smile In Midsummer. Where the heroine gets caught up in a plot by the villainous student council, and the hero, thinking she’s betrayed him, says that he wishes he had never encountered her in the first place… It’s really heart-wrenching. And my point is, it’s even framed the same.
>There are a whole lot of examples from other shoujo manga too, but I won’t bore you with all of those.
>I’m just saying… I think there’s definitely room to interpret Lancelot and Gawain’s relationship romantically, even if you wouldn’t yourself.

Whatever. Itaru absolutely does not want to continue this conversation, so he flicks back to OA3 and takes another look. The second most liked fic in the KniRoun IV The Stage tag appears to be a very different beast to the first. It’s rated explicit, and only a few thousand characters long in comparison. He checks the tags: on top of the characters and pairings it features, it’s also tagged “PWP”, “Canon Compliant”, “First Time”, “Enthusiastic Consent”, “pretty vanilla tbh”, and “power top Gawain”.

And isn’t that last one interesting. Honestly, in the original KniRoun games, that tag doesn’t seem to fit with Gawain’s character at all. He might be the wild type, but his uncritical obedience to his lord, in Itaru’s humble opinion, suggests his preference for following orders extends beyond the battlefield. He’s probably a service top, at most.

Chikage’s Gawain, though? The particular kind of barely-caged wildness he had brought to the role? If there was a Lancelot that only Itaru could have played, then there was a Gawain that only Chikage could have played, too, and it’s hard to imagine that Gawain taking orders from anyone.

His thumb twitches. Through no fault of his own, he’s been exposed to a lot of weird porn over the years; it’s just a consequence of being so online for so long. And surely, in comparison, porn of himself shouldn’t even register on that scale. So he hovers over the fic’s title for a moment longer, and then he clicks –

The door to the fire escape creaks open. “Chigasaki?”

Itaru startles and, by some stroke of luck, narrowly manages not to fling his phone down the stairs. Because of course Chikage, who has a knack for showing up at the least convenient times, has come looking for him now.

“Senpai?” he tries, and it comes out a little strangled. But he steels himself: he’s supposed to be an actor, and he’s definitely played far more challenging roles than Guy Pretending He Wasn’t About To Read Porn Starring The Person He’s Talking To. On paper, at least – and either way, he has to at least try for an air of normalcy. “What’s going on?”

Chikage gives him an undecipherable look as he steps into the stairwell, letting the door swing shut behind him. “What’s going on is that you left your desk half an hour ago. People are starting to wonder where you’ve disappeared to.”

Eyefucking, Itaru’s hell brain reminds him. Power top Gawain. He presses a button to close all his apps, and manages a watery laugh. “Yeah, well. A lot happened.”

“You’ll excuse me if I don’t believe that.”

“It’s true,” he insists.“But whatever, I know this is an argument I’m gonna lose. How’d you manage to find me?”

“One night, while you were sleeping, I installed a tracking device into your phone. Just in case anything happened to you as a result of associating with me. So once the thirty-minute mark had passed today, I pulled your location from that and went to find you.”

“Ha ha. That kind of joke might work on the rest of Spring Troupe, senpai, but it won’t work on me.”

“Who said it was a joke?”

“Well, that’s not how GPS signals work, for one. You wouldn’t have known my altitude, or my location down to the millimetre.”

“I didn’t say anything about GPS.” Chikage pushes the fire door open, leans on it to keep it that way. “But we’re wasting even more time. You wouldn’t want anyone to think you’d died in here.”

So Itaru decides to ignore that ominous note, and trots back out into the building proper. The fire escape borders a small lobby on each level of their office, where the elevators come out, and he lets himself pause there to gather himself before going back to work. It’s a relief to pick back through their exchange, and find it completely devoid of sexual tension. Just their usual banter, the same as always, perfectly cordial on every level, completely in line with their relationship as coworkers and co-actors and roommates and maybe, if he’s letting himself be honest for once, important friends –

Unless, a traitorous thought suggests, this is just how Chikage flirts. Can you platonically install a tracking device in your roommate’s phone? Or platonically make a joke about it, for that matter?

“Hang on, Chigasaki.” His senior’s voice cuts into his thoughts. “Just a moment.”

Itaru stops in his tracks, glances at his companion behind him. “Yeah?”

“You have dust on the back of your jacket.”

“Oh, jeez.” He must have screwed up and accidentally leaned on one of the handrails in the fire escape, which nobody ever bothers to clean. Itaru twists his neck, trying to catch sight of the offending smudge, but it remains stubbornly out of view. “Is it bad?”

Chikage’s lips almost quirk. “Yes. I can get it for you, though.”

Today feels exactly like dropping a ten-roll for a new SSR and getting a single, duplicate, SR in exchange. Only stretched out infinitely, excruciatingly longer, each dismal R of this conversation flipping at a glacial pace. And he’s pretty sure no amount of whaling can fix whatever situation it is he’s found himself in.

“You really don’t have to,” he tries. “I can take a bathroom break, a real one, and clean it up myself.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Hold still.”

Unfortunately, if he kicks up any more of a fuss, it’s only going to make things worse. So Itaru forces himself to stare dead ahead, hold his breath, and think extremely hard about literally anything else. When Chikage steps in and starts brushing off the dust – shoulders first, then sweeping around and down to the spine – his touch is light but purposeful. And it’s not gentle, exactly, but it’s deliberate in a way that feels a little strange, coming from him. Is this as close as Chikage gets to tenderness? Because he’s tender around the rest of Spring Troupe, but not like this. Not in a way that ever means physical contact; or the heat of his skin, which Itaru can’t help but imagine sinking into him, right down to his core.

Finally, just when Itaru’s starting to feel like his stomach can’t possibly twist in on itself any more, the presence at his back lessens a little. “There. You should probably still get it dry-cleaned this weekend, though.”

“Yup, will do. Thanks, senpai.”

“Of course. It’s my job as your senior to look out for you, even if I mostly have to save you from yourself.”

“You could’ve left that second part out, you know. Now that doesn’t sound sincere at all.”

“I wonder.”

Whatever that’s supposed to mean. Itaru settles for flapping a hand at him, but his Office Face doesn’t falter. “Yeah, yeah. Don’t you have a job to be doing, too?”

“Unlike certain impertinent juniors of mine, I happen to be up to date.”

“You’re really the worst.”

“I can accept that. See you later, Chigasaki. Good luck with your… endeavours.”

Chikage peels off toward his department, with a flash of teeth and a wave thrown over one shoulder. And although Itaru heads in an entirely different direction, to work on an entirely different task, the edge of that smile follows him.

*

His brief jaunt into the world of OA3 haunts Itaru for the rest of the day. And getting back to the dorm hardly improves things: it’s always full of people by the time he’s finished work, and it doesn’t help that he dorms with the person he wants to see least of all. Luckily, Chikage gets hailed by Sakuya and Citron almost as soon as they return, seeking a third opinion on something, and Itaru takes the opportunity to scuttle off to their room.

Out of his suit, sprawled on his couch, chugging a can of the awful peach soda Taichi had bought last week, and with his phone charging but still in reach, he does feel a little better. Or at least, better enough that he can start to think about this situation properly.

The issue isn’t that Mankai’s fans are effectively shipping him with one of his troupemates. It’s probably just an occupational hazard, or something, and at least they’ve picked someone his age and not, like, Masumi. Plus, Itaru’s long since done the gay-crisis thing; at this point, he’s pretty comfortable with the fact he’s also interested in guys, even if he’s never been able to act on that for a thousand reasons. The issue here is that he’s being paired up with Chikage, of all people. Chikage, who’s fundamentally unromantic, and kind of mean even on his nice days, and would probably be happier reorganising the dorm’s spice rack than having sex with a human being, and is still unfairly attractive.

Power top Gawain, part of his brain contributes, for the thousandth time today. As if he’s been able to think about anything else.

Okay. Okay, fine, maybe he’s not not kind of into Chikage. But that doesn’t actually mean anything; just that Itaru’s got eyes, and a healthy appreciation of the male form. And it especially doesn’t mean that anything is going to come of this – or even that he wants it to. Getting involved with his difficult senior would be far more trouble than it would be worth, on just about every level, and he plans to proceed accordingly. All he needs to do is kick down his traitorous, involuntary attraction to the person he spends the most time with, who can read him like a book. Easy.

To distract himself, he paws for his phone and checks his standing in the current Idlemeister event; as expected, Banri is once again in first place, riding high on the benefit of not having to drive home in peak hour. And as much as Itaru would like to hand that guy his ass, he’s itching to play something a bit more substantial than a mobage. It can wait at least a few minutes.

Just as he’s about to set his phone down, though, he gets a LIME notification. Muku, again. And it dawns on Itaru, with an uncomfortable lurch, that he left the boy hanging.

>Hey, Itaru. You never replied… is everything okay? I mean, are *we* okay??
>I want to apologise, actually. I know you really care a lot about KniRoun, and I might’ve said something about it that upset you.
>I’m sorry!!!!!! orz orz orz
>As punishment, I’ll never speak to you ever again. I won’t even look at you or acknowledge your existence because I’m sure I made you hate me and it’s the least I deserve and

>oh man
>lol you’re fine
>srsly
>like that site was kinda weird but
>not the weirdest thing i’ve ever seen, lmao
>by a long shot

>Whew.
>Okay. If you’re sure.

>completely

It’s true. Itaru’s tolerance for Weird Shit Online is much higher than it should be, honed by years of inhabiting the lowest circles of the internet, and it’s obvious Muku hadn’t linked him to OA3 with any gross intentions. And this doesn’t even change anything about his situation with Chikage, not when he’d already been prone to the occasional inconvenient thought about his roommate anyway. No harm, no foul. Case closed.

And that, as far as he’s concerned, should be the end of that.

*

Unfortunately, putting Chikage out of his mind is infinitely easier said than done. It’s as if, having hit the admit you might have not-wholly-platonic thoughts about the guy you live with flag, new events crop up constantly over the next few days. Like how they suddenly keep getting paired up to do etudes together, or how they always somehow go into the too-small kitchen to serve themselves at the same time, and have to do a strange dance to stay out of each other’s trajectories. Or how, when Itaru finds himself lying awake at night, as he does more and more often as the week wears on, Chikage’s slow, even breathing from the other bed always sounds too loud in his ears.

The net effect is to make Itaru feel… weird. Light-headed, and like his stomach is trying to digest his heart, and always acutely aware of the distance between them. And it doesn’t help that Chikage always seems to be watching. It feels like every time Itaru glances up, whether he’s at work or at practice or just knocking around the dorm, they make eye contact. There’s nothing suggestive about it, either; Chikage has the same dispassionate gaze as always, like he’s regarding someone of no consequence, and not a person he’s presumably at least a little invested in. But the strangest part is that he never seems to acknowledge it once he’s been caught. Just blinks, slowly, like a big cat behind glass at the zoo, as if everything about this is perfectly natural, until Itaru inevitably wrenches himself away first.

So he copes as he always does: by playing a lot of video games.

Right now it’s two in the morning, and he has to be up in less than four hours, and he’s sprawled on his couch chipping away at a console RPG. He likes playing story-heavy games for the first time late at night, when he can sit in the dark and transform his room into a one-man cinema. There’s just something about the atmosphere of it, about the immersion and the solitude, that he’d be hard-pressed to explain to someone else. And it helps that he has the room to himself; Chikage had slipped off somewhere after dinner, with as little explanation as ever.

Itaru’s worrying at one of his nails, staring at his quest log and trying to work out the best order to tackle nearby sidequests, when he hears the sound of the key turning. Then the lights come on with a loud click. He throws his free hand over his face, but it’s too late, and his retinas have already been seared to a crisp.

“Aughhh!”

“Oh, my bad.” Chikage doesn’t sound very sorry at all, but he does flick the lights off again as he steps inside. Itaru squints sulkily at him through the gaps between his fingers. “Good evening.”

“Have a little empathy, senpai. I could’ve been sleeping.”

“Not this early.”

He’s right, but Itaru is absolutely too cranky to admit it. Ignoring his unrepentant roommate, and determined to enjoy himself regardless, he picks his controller back up and returns to his game. Closing the menu reveals his protagonist standing in a field, in one of the overworld areas that connect dungeons. The television bathes the room in cool green light, underwater in a shallow sea, and he goes through a battle or two before he realises how weirdly silent the rest of room 103 is.

Glancing to the right, the cause makes itself clear. Chikage’s on the other end of the sofa, fiddling with his phone, but otherwise looking completely ensconced. Which is unusual behaviour, but not at all bad. Itaru wets his lips.

“Well, well. Have you finally caved and acknowledged the appeal of games?”

“Hardly. I just can’t sleep.”

“How would you even know? You’ve been gone from our room all night, so it doesn’t seem like you’ve been trying very hard. I mean. Unless you’ve been sleeping somewhere else.”

“Does it matter to you where I’ve been sleeping?”

Itaru opens his mouth. Itaru closes his mouth. In hindsight, he doesn’t even know why he said any of that. Because it’s late, most likely, or because his brain is a little scrambled from gaming for the last several hours. Or because he’s getting worse and worse at stamping down his confusion about this situation, no matter how hard he tries. Because the absence in him is becoming too much to ignore, digging itself too wide and too deep, and he’s running out of paper to slap over it.

“Hey, your business is your business.” It comes out kind of shaky, but that’s still a better outcome than having to admit it probably does matter. “But, y’know, if you are staying the night somewhere, I guess I’d appreciate some notice. Just so I know you’re alive.”

“I’ll make sure to do that, and save you the trouble of waiting up for me next time.”

“That’s really not what I’m doing. I’m awake for my own reasons, thanks, and they have nothing to do with you.”

“Like video games?”

“Like whatever the hell I want.”

“Well, luckily for you, I haven’t.”

“Haven’t what?”

Even behind the shine of his glasses, the shadows around Chikage’s eyes are a dark, dark green. “Been sleeping anywhere else.”

“And what makes you think I – oh, shit!”

Itaru snaps his attention abruptly back to the screen. In the time he’s been talking to Chikage, a mob has crept up on his avatar, idling cluelessly in the overworld, and launched him into an encounter. By the grace of some god of gaming, he manages to pull himself together in time for the fight to begin; he has the most fun with these particular games if he runs them a little underleveled, and they feature real-time combat, so just about any enemy can threaten to wipe him if he’s not careful.

Thankfully, he downs his foes pretty fast. And then, making sure he’s actually paused after battle this time, he addresses his companion. “Anyway. If you can’t sleep, and you don’t feel like sleeping, wanna play some co-op? It has to be this game, though. I’m not gonna have the energy to grind in it once the Imeis event picks up.”

“Absolutely not.”

He prods his toes into one of Chikage’s socked feet. “What, turning me down just like that? You should be honoured. There are thousands of people who’d die for an opportunity to play with the great taruchi, you know, and you’re getting the chance for free.”

“You’re mistaking me for one of your fans. And besides, even if I wanted to play, I don’t know how.”

“Senpai. I know you’ve cleared at least one KniRoun game, and all RPGs play at least a bit similar. Plus, you’re a cheat character, and you do way harder things than this all the time. Come on.”

“And what’s in it for me?”

That stops him in his tracks. Because the answer is nothing, really, except the pleasure of Itaru’s company, and he’s hardly at his most pleasurable at 2am on a work night after an hours-long gaming marathon. And that’s hardly an incentive anyway when they already spend so much time together. But the thing is, there’s still an honest answer here. Even if that answer isn’t the cool answer, or the witty answer, or the answer that doesn’t make him cede ground in their usual back-and-forth. “I don’t know. It’d make me happy, I guess.”

Chikage says nothing, but then folds with remarkable speed and grace. “Fine. But just one battle.”

“Come on, that’ll be over in less than a minute. It hardly even counts.”

“Well, then you had better make it a good one.”

Itaru makes a gently exasperated noise, and stands up to hunt for his second controller. It’s supposed to be in its usual place under the TV, but since Banri seems to delight in using his things and not putting them back, he actually finds it balanced on a stack of game cases halfway across the room. But it still has charge, and little lights blink cheerfully at him when he syncs it to the console.

Then, handing the controller off to his new Player Two, he returns to the couch and launches into his explanation of the game. It takes place in a fantasy setting, based more on medieval Europe than Japan; the protagonist is a young acolyte of the church, who sets off on his coming-of-age pilgrimage to the ruins of a holy city, and winds up embroiled in a civil war he never even knew existed. His love interest is a leader of the revolution, her side steadily being outgunned, and the other party members include both soldiers from the opposing faction, and other unrelated people who’ve been roped in. Right now Itaru has just collected his final party member, and is closing in on the dungeon which he thinks will mark the end of the first act. One of the opposing generals is supposed to be waiting there, which bodes well for a major plot shakeup – but, on the other hand, one of the things he likes so much about great RPGs is that you can never really know for sure.

His next infodump is about the battle system, and he tries to balance clarity with thoroughness: move with the left joystick, attack with the face buttons, block with one of the bumpers. The d-pad is used to access items, or switch members in the party’s formation. And there are also special finishing moves, but those probably aren’t going to be relevant in a single fight, so he only glosses over them.

Having delivered his special Itarutorial (Itaru tutorial), the next question is going to be which party member Chikage gets to control. (Itaru, of course, has already locked in the protagonist.) It’s hard to imagine him choosing a caster, because as much as he’d probably enjoy the more tactical feel of standing in the backline and flinging spells, they’re also probably too squishy for his taste. On the other hand, pure melee seems like a hard sell too, by dint of being overly straightforward. So Itaru picks out one of the characters who’s a hybrid of those playstyles – the one who’s a cute girl, just for the amusing image of his acerbic roommate controlling an upbeat, twintailed teen – on his behalf. Also, she’s a mercenary who accidentally gets really attached to the party, and he explains both those factors in her selection. And then, finally, they’re ready. But he does skim the menus one more time, just to check if he’s missed any particularly important mechanics.

“Okay, I think that should be good. Got everything?”

“I’ve already forgotten all of it. You’ll have to repeat that, and go into even more detail.”

“Don’t be a menace, senpai.”

“All right, that wasn’t true. But still – did you need to provide a ten-minute summary of this entire game to prepare me for sixty seconds of playtime?”

“This stuff is important.”

“I’m sure it is.”

Itaru decides not to dignify that sarcasm with a response, instead tapping out of his menus and back out to the overworld. “If you’re only gonna join for one battle, it can’t just be a regular encounter. There’s meant to be an optional boss around here, I think, so let’s go with that.”

“You’d throw a first-time player into the fire so casually?”

“If the first-time player was you, yeah. Cause if you can pull off being the lead of a play after vanishing for half our rehearsal time, and figure it out as you go, you can get through a miniboss encounter. Plus, this is co-op. I’ve carried worse. Like, way worse. You just have to not actively drag me down.”

“I don’t know. That’s asking a lot of me.”

“Senpai.”

In the absence of any real protest, Itaru picks his way to one corner of the map. As expected, there’s a huge snake lurking there, slithering in slow, patient circles as it waits for prey to approach. He tosses a sideways glance at his co-op buddy, still sitting with perfect posture on the other sofa cushion. “Ready?”

“I suppose.”

He propels his avatar forward to make contact with the snake. And the overworld blurs, and they load into combat.

The fight starts promisingly enough – the AI-controlled party members take their positions, Itaru sprints his character into melee range, and Chikage does… something. He doesn’t really have the focus to pay attention to what the rest of his team are up to, not when it’s his job to keep the boss’s attention by hammering it up close.

But the monster, as it turns out, isn’t just a snake. It’s a cobra; it spits huge venom AOEs, and summons other serpents to flood the battlefield, and brutally swings its body around, and has a single-target bite attack which stuns and deals poison damage over time. Itaru finds this last one out the hard way, when his character gets abruptly KO’d.

“Fucking… god dammit.”

He switches control to one of the other characters almost instinctively. The healer he’s fielding should have a revival spell, and he’d rather burn MP than an expensive res item. But its cast time is very slow, and the giant cobra’s venom-spit attack isn’t slow at all, and in the absence of a party member drawing aggro, his healer girl crumples like a leaf.

“Shit. Senpai, can you –”

But he doesn’t even finish that sentence before Chikage’s character uses a revival item. The party’s healer rises in a halo of white, and Itaru scuttles her out of the way of one of the smaller snakes. By the time he’s restored her to full health with a potion, Chikage has already resurrected his original character, and he swaps back gratefully.

Time blurs. Their party is still completely outgunned, thanks to the fact their characters are too low-level, the fact he’s been stingy about buying items for the sake of making the game more challenging, and the fact this boss is actually much stronger than anticipated. Their mage drops AOE after AOE, their other hybrid unit alternates dashing in to melee with single-target DoT spells, and Itaru’s hands grow clammy against the hot plastic of his controller.

Darting his eyes to the party’s health readouts, there’s at least a light at the end of the tunnel: this fight’s gone on so long that they’ve finally managed to accrue enough meter to use some specials. He cuts his eyes to the right, catches a glimpse of Chikage’s thumbs as they work back and forth, pries his dry mouth open.

“Hey, senpai. You know how I told you about all those kinds of special attacks, even though I thought we definitely weren’t going to have to use any?”

“I might recall.”

“Cool. Cause I need you to move right up behind the boss so we can flank it, and then on my signal, I need you to hit both triggers at the same time. Uh, the triggers are the buttons your index fingers are on, but like, the – hang on.” He neatly sidesteps his character out of the cobra’s lunge attack. “The back ones, that you can push all the way in. Can you do that?”

“All right.” In his peripheral vision, there’s a blur of pink as Chikage gets his character into position. “Ready.”

“Okay, then let’s do it on go. Three, two, one… go!”

Itaru hammers both his trigger buttons at once, ignoring the obnoxious click of plastic under his fingers. But nothing happens, and for an intolerable second, he thinks they’ve flubbed the timing, and this whole boss fight is down the drain –

And then there’s a cool cut-in of their characters’ portraits, and they launch into a special linked attack. Itaru’s priest boy fells the snake with a flying kick, pinning it under his weight, and then Chikage’s mercenary girl swings her oversized axe and whacks it into the distance like a golf ball. Of course, the visuals are just for show; the attack isn’t meant to be an insta-kill or anything, just do a ton of damage. Still, as the animation ends and the battlefield fades back in, there’s an unexpected upshot.

Finally, finally, the snake writhes and goes into its death animation. In its place, the combat results screen pops up: it’s dropped a ton of experience points, a bunch of gold, some rare crafting materials, and a collectible that proves they’ve defeated this particular optional boss. Under the results window, the party members strike victorious poses: the mercenary girl slings a casual arm over the shoulders of the priest boy, who wears a sheepish grin, with the others arrayed behind them. Itaru exhales at last, and loosens his clawed hands around his controller. When he looks across, the glare cast by the television collects on Chikage’s glasses, and makes his expression impossible to read.

“Hey, GJ. Not bad for a supposed beginner.”

“Thank you. That was intolerable.”

“Oh, come on. You didn’t have fun at all? Not even a tiny bit?”

“I’m not sure what else you expected, knowing my opinion on games. But, even so – this wasn’t a complete waste of time. It isn’t bad to see you get serious about things.”

Itaru’s brain is still spinning from concentrating so hard on such a strenuous boss fight, and he doesn’t parse the compliment at first. “It isn’t? Uh. I mean. You like me serious?”

“That was a lie, of course. I don’t have strong feelings either way.” Chikage stands and stretches, first his back and then his arms. “Thank you for the battle, though, Chigasaki. I feel like I might be able to sleep now.”

“You aren’t more awake after that?”

“Not at all. I found it very trancelike.”

“Trancelike,” Itaru echoes. “Okay. Hey, senpai, but did you really mean –”

“Don’t be up too much later. I don’t want to deal with your whining tomorrow, when you inevitably end up complaining to me about being tired.”

On anyone else, that would’ve read like a deflection from the real point. On Chikage, known deflecter and first-order teller of lies, it still does; but this is one deception Itaru doesn’t want to call him on. Better to keep up the masquerade, maintain the equilibrium, and not launch himself down the rabbit hole of what it might mean that he’s been paid a dangerously sincere-sounding compliment. Because the only thing worse than no hope is false hope, and Itaru’s more than familiar enough with living on nothing. “Yeah. I won’t.”

“Goodnight, then.”

“Yeah. Night.”

*

Unsurprisingly, that night does absolutely nothing to mitigate the feelings he’s trying to ignore. When he had been an occasional presence around the office, a senior colleague with an uncanny sense for the market and good bone structure, Chikage had been a dark cloud on the horizon; but now, as a comrade and friend, who can be trusted with anything even if he’d never admit it, he’s a whole thunderstorm and Itaru’s out in the open. And, after the fiftieth time that week he bites down on asking hey, senpai, what actually am I to you, like some tongue-tied high school girl, he decides to seek help.

The problem with being one of the adults of Spring Troupe is that sometimes, when he needs an adult, he has precious few options. As much as he cares about and trusts his younger troupemates, it wouldn’t do to trouble them about something like this; even if they’ll never believe he’s cool and infallible, that illusion long since shattered, he can at least shield them from some of his life’s most embarrassing banalities.

Still: only having a few options isn’t the same as having no options. And it helps that, when it comes to torturous self-denial, Mankai Company has a clear king. So that night, browsing the net on his phone while he queues for a dungeon in Last Fantasia VIX and tries to ignore Chikage reading a book on the sofa, Itaru gives in and opens his DMs with Sakyo.

>hey
>i know this is out of the blue but
>do you wanna go drinking soon

Sakyo doesn’t answer right away, which is more or less as expected. He’s probably off doing yakuza shit, or trying to stop Autumn Troupe from murdering each other, or aggressively re-balancing Mankai Company’s books, or whatever else it is he does. Can’t fault him for keeping busy, at least. In the interim, Itaru cracks open another soda, rotates his shoulders to work the feeling back into them, and boots up the KniRoun mobage. Even though he’s up to date with the events going on right now in Life Love, Idlemeister, Branglue, Great/Destiny Order, and the male idol game he and Banri had picked up as a joke last year and accidentally gotten really into, he’s been lazy about KniRoun. Even though it’s such an important franchise to him, and even though the summer event – always one of his favourites – is on at the moment. Then again, it’s obvious why he’s been dragging his feet: the free 4* this time is Gawain in a swimsuit, winking as he lounges in a lifeguard tower, whistle halfway raised to his lips. Still, it’s a limited card, and he can definitely ignore how weird he feels about Gawain at the moment in favour of getting one of his best boys. But, just as he reaches the title screen, a notification comes in.

>What’s your game, Chigasaki.

Well, Summer Gawain will have to wait a bit longer, but at least it’s for a real cause this time.

>why does this have to be a game
>it’s not *always* games with me, you know
>maybe i want to talk to you about something
>and alcohol will help

The messages get marked as read, and then Sakyo goes offline. That’s a little unhelpful, but it’s also fair, seeing as he probably has other things to do. Itaru checks his queue once more, then goes back to KniRoun and starts an event quest.

Just after he clears the the first wave, there’s a knock on the door, strong enough to pierce through Itaru’s headphones. He turns his head and, in his peripheral vision, watches Chikage go to answer it. Well, whatever; it’s probably not for him anyway. All of Spring Troupe knows not to bother him at this hour, and he could count on one hand the number of other people it’s likely to be.

The KniRoun quest is an easy clear; it’s a boring low-level mission, because this event is open to all players, and not just the ones with a stable of max-uncap, max-level, max-skill 5* cards. And he’s about to go for the next one, when a shadow falls over the desk. Itaru glances up, ready to tell Chikage off for standing in his light – they’ve talked about this, even if his roommate constantly pretends to forget as much – but that’s not who he finds. Instead, it’s Sakyo who’s looming in front of him, looking as completely unimpressed as ever. He begrudgingly slips off his headphones. “What’s up?”

“Chigasaki. We’re going out.”

His eyes flick back to his PC. On one hand, he’s in a DPS queue, so it’s unlikely to pop in the minute or two it’ll take to get Sakyo off his back; on the other hand, he’s in a DPS queue, so if he does miss this window, he’s likely to be waiting around for another half hour or more for a shot at this dungeon, and he still doesn’t have the armour drop he wants from it. “Uh, can it wait? Now’s really not a good time.”

“I’m busy for the rest of this week. If you want to go drinking, it has to be tonight.”

It’s irritating to admit it, but in this particular moment, he does need Sakyo’s advice slightly more than he needs one more chance at lucking into both getting the drop, and winning the roll. He casts one more longing look at his queue, and emotionally drops a big fat F in the chat for the near-hour of his life wasted without a dungeon run to show for it. “Yeah, yeah. Gimme five min to log out and get changed.”

“Fine. I’ll be in the lounge.”

Sakyo, always business, leaves with as little fanfare as he had arrived. From his position across the room, Chikage watches Itaru with faint amusement.

“What.”

“Nothing.” Chikage crosses his legs at the ankles. “I was just thinking about how odd that was, when you and Furuichi aren’t particularly close. He seems like an interesting first choice of drinking companion.”

“Don’t talk about my relationships like you understand them better than I do.”

“I’m just curious what business you have together.”

“Yeah, god forbid you don’t know about every single thing going on in the dorms, for once. Sounds like you’re just jealous I didn’t ask you instead, senpai.”

His attempt to turn the conversation around fizzles, of course, and that just makes Chikage raise his eyebrows. “Very funny. Still, I wouldn’t mind going with you next time. It’s been a while, especially since I’ve been skipping more office drinking parties than usual lately.”

“Yeah,” says Itaru’s stupid traitor mouth, “that sounds good. Sometime in the next week?”

“All right. Let’s do the 13th.”

“Hey, don’t go deciding on your own. I’m not free nights until after the 15th, thanks.”

“I can’t imagine you have a good excuse for that.”

“I do, actually.”

“Then let’s hear it.”

“Well, I don’t expect you to understand, but #1-ing an Idlemeister event is serious business. Especially since I’m also playing events in Branglue and KniRoun, and don’t get me started on how lazy I’ve been about LFVIX.”

“That’s not a good excuse at all.”

“Okay, then here’s a better one, senpai: do you want me to lose to Banri? Because I’m already risking it, just by taking a couple of hours off tonight. If I slack off even the tiniest bit after this, he’s gonna completely own me, and then he’ll never let me hear the end of it. Do you want your favourite junior to eat shit at the hands of a literal child? Would that make you happy?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Chigasaki. I think you could stand to be knocked down a peg or two.”

...That has to count as flirting, right? It definitely feels like there’s some kind of invitation in the way those words are delivered. If Itaru had picked that dialogue option in an otome game, he’d definitely have gained affection points with the guy he was trying to romance. But Chikage, who’s taller and broader and manlier than Itaru, isn’t a girl; and Itaru can’t sort out the way that makes something heat in the pit of his stomach enough to tell if that line worked on him.

“Whatever,” he says at last, once the gap in conversation becomes far too obvious. “I knew appealing to your compassion would be a dead end, but still. 16th or nothing. The new GDO event’s meant to start on the 17th, according to the datamine, and I’m SR-rushing.”

“Oh, the 16th is out for me. I told my boss I’d stay late that day to help wrangle an important client.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. The fact they’re trusting me with such a high-profile deal probably means they’re sizing me up for a promotion, or at least a raise.”

“Oh, GJ. Grats, senpai, but I guess that sends us back to the drawing board.”

“...Just kidding. The 16th should be fine.”

Itaru heaves a colossal, long-suffering sigh. “I know I’ve told you this before, but it definitely bears repeating: your personality stinks.”

“If that’s the case, what do you think that says about people who willingly put up with me?”

“That they’re Spring Troupe.”

Chikage’s eyes crinkle. “True.”

“Anyway. Sakyo’s gonna kick my ass if I take any longer to get ready, so, get out of here and let me change.”

Uncharacteristically, his roommate actually takes his book and leaves with zero fuss. Itaru takes this unexpected blessing without complaint, trades his comfortable gaming clothes for something smart casual, and trots out of room 103.

The door to the lounge is open, and unsurprisingly, there’s an insane amount of noise spilling out. Stepping inside, Itaru pauses a moment to make sense out of the room’s usual chaos. At one end of the dining table, Kumon, Taichi, Citron, and Muku are playing a card game, voices climbing higher and higher at incredible volume. At the other, Homare and Tsuzuru are talking over their latest manuscripts, although Homare seems to be holding most of the conversation. Juza and the director are hovering by the kitchen, watching Omi as he retrieves a tray from the oven. The television’s in use by Tsumugi and Tasuku and Guy, who’ve paused midway through watching a recording of another troupe, and are engaged in a heated discussion about some minor detail of its staging. And, of course, Sakyo’s plastered against one of the walls, and his eyes somehow snap right onto Itaru. He shuffles apologetically up to the yakuza anyway.

“K. Let’s bounce.”

“You said you’d be five minutes,” says Sakyo. “It’s been seven and a half.”

“Yeah, sorry. Had to get senpai off my back.”

Sakyo gives him an inscrutable look, but ultimately seems to decide not to comment. “Fine. We’re off, then.”

They get an enthusiastic chorus of goodbyes from the card players, plus the kitchen crew, and Tsuzuru silently makes a farewell kind of expression; the theatre junkies and their initiate are too deep in conversation to even notice, and nothing short of the apocalypse can stop Homare once he really gets going about poetry.

But they do ultimately make it out of the dorm without consequence. The first thing Itaru notices is that it’s still hot outside, even though it’s well after nine. But it’s not humid, and the night breeze is pleasant on his skin, and he’s happy to follow in his companion’s wake. So he trails Sakyo down Veludo Way – past a run of other theatres, past the shopping strip, past the abandoned park – and they’re almost to the station before the other man peels off. He heads over to a staircase set into one of the buildings, only a little wider than the breadth of his shoulders; the kind of staircase Itaru would absolutely have missed if he wasn’t looking for it. And, after climbing it for what feels like an eternity, they emerge into a bar.

To Sakyo’s credit, it’s at least a really nice bar. The atmosphere is dark, smokey, lit by candles and ambient light streaming in from outside; smooth jazz snakes its way through the space from an unseen speaker, interspersed with murmurs of conversation. The pair of them weave through the place, passing more empty seats than full ones, to a table by a window overlooking the street below.

Itaru sits, taking the seat closer to the corner out of habit. But Sakyo doesn’t, instead hovering like a particularly stressful housefly, and folds his arms across his chest.

“What are you drinking?

“Uh… beer, I guess. Rare for you to be covering it, though. Did asking you here unlock some kind of hidden sub-event?”

“You’re paying me back first thing tomorrow.”

“Oh. GG.”

With that, Sakyo clicks his tongue and beelines for the bar. He spends a long time talking to the man staffing it, with the familiarity of an old regular. When he returns, it’s with a pint of the house beer, and a glass of neat whiskey that gleams in the low light. Itaru, feeling more vaguely emasculated by his choices than usual, reaches for his drink.

“So… cheers?”

“Cheers.”

They tap glasses, and then they drink. Honestly, all beer is kind of the same to Itaru and his soda palate – it’s a cheap, socially acceptable beverage that moves him steadily away from sobriety – but even he can tell this one is good. Still, there’s something on his mind that prevents him from enjoying it fully.

“So. Is this, like, a yakuza bar?”

Sakyo sets his glass down with a solid thunk. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I mean, it’s dark and secret, and the bartender seemed to know you.”

“He knows me because I’m a regular. I’ve been coming here for years, and it has nothing to do with work.”

“Cool. Gotcha.”

After that, they drink in silence for a little while. As nice as the place is, it’s difficult to fully appreciate the atmosphere, considering they’re supposed to be here for a very particular reason. At some point, a bartender comes past and drops off a plate of small rice crackers. Itaru, breaking one in half between forefinger and thumb, wonders how he’s supposed to begin when he still feels this sober.

“All right. Why don’t we get to the point, Chigasaki?”

He looks up from his contemplation of the rice-cracker debris dotting his edge of the table. Sakyo’s face is stern, immovable in the candlelight. “What point? We’re just here, having nice friendly drinks, as friends. No ulterior motives in sight.”

“You don’t really think of me as a friend.”

“Well, maybe not, but you’re – you’re something. You still matter. And I really do want to ask for advice on something, it’s just… I’m definitely way too sober RN. And I have work tomorrow, so I’m really gonna die if I drink enough to be honest with you.”

“Then, if you can’t bring yourself to say it… would it help if I guessed it?”

That’s exactly the kind of tactic he’d have expected from someone who’s had to raise a child – especially, if he’s being honest, someone who’s had to raise Azami. He crunches pensively on a rice cracker. “No clue. Might be worth a shot, though.”

Sakyo goes quiet as he thinks. Itaru takes the chance to gulp down the dregs of his beer, hoping they’ll somehow push him out of sobriety. That goes about as well as expected.

“Am I right in assuming that you’re speaking to me because you can’t speak to anyone in Spring Troupe?”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“Then, does it concern one of them directly?”

“You know what?” Itaru says. “Fuck it. I definitely need another drink.”

“Get me another, too, and I’ll cancel your debt.”

“This is like the damn theatre all over again,” Itaru grouses, mostly out of fondness, but he goes nonetheless. The offerings he returns with are two glasses of whiskey, one neat and one on the rocks. He and Sakyo toast, again, and when he slugs his, the ice can’t quite dilute the heavy aftertaste of liquor. It feels like it’s punching clean through his sinuses, and that gives him the courage to actually talk about his problem head-on.

“All right. To be honest, there’s… someone in Mankai I guess I’ve become kind of interested in, lately. And I really don’t know what to do about it. The longer it goes on, the worse it gets, and obviously I can’t act on it. Mostly cause I care about the company staying together too much to risk it, but there are a bunch of other reasons too. So. I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to say something about it to someone.”

Sakyo’s mouth thins into a displeased line. “Is it the director? Because I should warn you, if you intend to pursue her –”

“It’s not the director.” Itaru manages not to roll his eyes, but it’s an extremely close thing. Trust Sakyo to hone in on that first. “I’m not interested or dumb enough for that.”

“Dumb?”

“Yeah, I’d have to be pretty dumb to go for Izumi. Between you and Masumi, I’d last, like, one second before hitting an early Bad End.” And then, because the big-brother instinct Itaru’s honed from his time in Spring Troupe won’t stop acting up, even though he’s talking to someone a good deal older than him, he decides to throw just one cat among Sakyo’s pigeons. “Man, it’s gonna suck when she does start dating someone, huh? Because a woman like our director won’t stay single forever. And I bet you’re gonna feel like a huge idiot for missing your chance.”

“...We were talking about you,” Sakyo says stiffly. “I fail to see how my own romantic endeavours enter into it.”

“Yeah, about that. Half the reason I wanted to ask you is because you’ve been repressing something similar for, like, a year and a half now? And it doesn’t seem to have killed you. So if you’ve got any strats for, I don’t know, keeping it all inside or whatever. I’d appreciate them.”

“To be honest. If this is about Utsuki, I’d suggest you just tell him and get it over with.”

Itaru, beer halfway to his mouth, almost spills his drink all down his front. “ Get it over with – hang on, I didn’t say anything about senpai!”

“Chigasaki,” Sakyo says, tone level, “it is stunningly obvious you were talking about him.”

“You don’t know that. I could’ve been talking about, uh…” He pauses a second to rifle through the list of Mankai members old enough that he wouldn’t feel weird about going on a date with them. “I don’t know, anyone in Winter Troupe?”

“I doubt going after someone from a different sub-troupe will risk tearing the company apart. Also, you spend the most time with Spring Troupe and Utsuki in particular, so it only makes sense. To say nothing of your behaviour around each other.”

Itaru, strangely, finds himself kind of annoyed. To hear that people have been harbouring assumptions about a revelation he’s only just stumbled upon himself… well, it doesn’t sit well. “Look, Sakyo, you’ve presumably spoken to senpai at least once in the last few months. What makes you think I can just…” He puts his drink down, the better to viciously air-quote his companion. “Walk up to him and ‘get it over with’? How well do you think it’s going to go down if I say hey, senpai, sometimes you make me feel like I have heartburn, let’s bang and see if that clears it up? He’s going to say no as crushingly as possible, and then our relationship is never going to be the same, and it’s going to destroy Spring Troupe. Even worse – he’s going to laugh at me. And that’d probably destroy me, too.”

He’s greeted with dead silence and an open stare. At first, Itaru assumes it’s because he’s been kind of crude about sex in front of Sakyo, whose fantasies probably all consist of hand-holding and coy looks over a romantic dinner and fading to black before anyone so much as takes their shirt off, but then the yakuza’s eyebrows draw together in a frown. “Your interest in Utsuki… it’s purely physical? Not romantic?”

He does roll his eyes, this time. “I mean, yeah. He’s a friend, one I just feel kinda weird around, so it’s not a big emotional thing. Not everything has to be a whole romance novel saga, no matter what you shoujo-manga stans think.”

“No, I’m aware. I had just thought…” Sakyo cuts himself off. “Never mind.”

“Hang on. Hang on, you thought it was a romantic thing?”

“What else was I meant to assume from the constant flirtation.”

“The what.”

“The constant flirtation. The longing looks you keep throwing each other. The fact that you’re nearly always together. The absolutely incessant teasing about anything and everything.”

“Uh, that just means we’re friends who enjoy some friendly shit-talk? No offense,” says Itaru, “but I think all that manga’s rotted your brain. Senpai’s just kinda like that, and hanging out with him makes me be more like that, too. There’s really nothing between us.”

“I find that hard to believe. And if you don’t trust me, then ask someone else for their opinion. At the least, I can tell you the young master keeps complaining to me about your indecency, and it’s been getting more frequent.”

“Like a fourteen-year-old with a twisted view of romance counts for anything.”

“He’s far from the only one. Spring Troupe are probably all too oblivious to pick anything up, but it’s hardly gone unnoticed by everyone else in Mankai. Ask anyone in Winter Troupe. Actually, if you’d really like a meaningful opinion on Utsuki’s behaviour, ask Mikage.”

“Uh, yeah, no.” As if Hisoka isn’t reason number three – behind Chikage himself and tearing Spring Troupe apart – that Itaru’s new not-quite-crush can never go anywhere. He’s still a little unsure what their relationship is, or was, but there’s definitely something kind of weird and uncomfortable at play, and Hisoka can be strangely unpredictable besides. “Zero out of ten suggestion. Hard pass.”

“Fine, but my point stands. Neither of you are being subtle, and as much as you might think your interest is unreciprocated, I don’t agree.”

“Yeah, but my point stands too: have you met the guy? I really don’t think he’s capable of having those kinds of feelings. I can’t imagine him being into me physically, let alone romantically. So I’d have to be pretty messed up to seriously go for someone like that.”

“I could try and argue this more, but I know we’d just be talking in circles. I suppose what I’m really getting at is… are you refusing to act because of legitimate reasons, or just because of cowardice?”

Sakyo’s drink is still mostly full; Itaru’s is pushing empty, and he finishes the rest in one gulp rather than answering. The taste of whiskey persists on the back of his tongue, but it’s been muted by the ice, and it’s not an unpleasant lingering. “Hey, that was actually really good? What if I got another.”

“You have work tomorrow.”

“True, but also not important. And, okay, fine, maybe I am a coward. But even if I wasn’t, this would still be a problem I inherently can’t solve. My stats just aren’t high enough, or I can’t meet the conditions to pick up the right flag. Like… you know when you run a dating sim for the first time, and you hit a point where you know a flag would be on New Game Plus, but you don’t even get a dialogue option? It’s like that. I’m on the wrong playthrough, and completely gated out of getting anywhere with senpai. And I won’t get to run this again once I’m more qualified, because it’s real life, so. GG, no re.”

“...With that spike in gamer talk, you absolutely don’t need another drink.”

“I think you’d like dating sims, though. They’re like romance novels, but better, cause they’re games. And the stories branch, so rereading them is actually satisfying. I’ll even find you one with a main heroine who looks like Izumi – actually, I’m pretty sure I already have one. EZ.”

“There’s no good reason for you to own such a thing.”

“I own a ton, though, so of course one of those is gonna have an Izumi clone. Plus we literally just established that the only one I’m trying to capture is senpai, but whatev.” He stands. “I’m getting a beer.”

“You aren’t supposed to mix beer and hard liquor.”

“I can’t tell you how much I don’t care.”

Sakyo hides his frown with another sip of his drink. “Chigasaki.”

“No, you don’t get it,” Itaru insists. “Even if I don’t like like senpai, I still care a ton, you know? I think he might be the only one who understands how Spring Troupe saved me… because they saved him the same way, probably. There’s so much I stand to lose if he rejects me. Which he totally would, by the way. And I’ll be mature in the morning, but for now? I just. I just wanted to tell someone about my problems, and then not have to think about them.”

“Well, I suppose I can empathise about that much. I might not be in your exact position, or be handling things the same way, but – I do understand what it’s like to have too much at stake to act.”

Sakyo’s eyes are dark; unreadable, but for the melancholy that clearly animates them. And if, as Itaru totters off, he thinks he hears his companion let out a wistful little sigh – well, he’ll blame that on the alcohol.

*

Itaru’s miserable and hungover the next morning – head pounding, mouth dry, as tired as if he’d barely slept – and the worst part is that Chikage isn’t even taking pity on him. Maybe he’s just feeling spiteful because Itaru, heading back into room 103 after a few more drinks, had walked clean into his roommate’s bedframe and impacted it hard enough to wake him up. But, more likely, it’s just his naturally terrible personality.

“You’re the one who decided to go drinking in the middle of the week,” Chikage offers, comfortably ensconced in the passenger seat as they drive to work. He’s browsing today’s headlines on his phone, and sparing absolutely no energy on his suffering colleague. “Forgive me if I find it hard to sympathise.”

Itaru flicks on his turn signal, moves into the right lane slightly too fast to qualify as good driving. “Yeah, yeah. What happened to taking care of your juniors?”

“Like I said before. Things are different when it comes to saving you from yourself.”

Bastard. As if it hadn’t been his fault Itaru had gone drinking in the first place, desperate for advice for a problem he wouldn’t be able to discuss sober. He almost says as much, exhaustion skewing his judgment, but narrowly manages to bite it back.

“Still, it isn’t like you to initiate a drinking party on a work night, or to come back from one drunk. And your behaviour’s been more and more erratic lately, in general. Is everything…” Chikage cuts himself off, seems to think hard about his next words. When Itaru glances over, he’s frowning at his phone, although the screen is blank. “If something’s bothering you, I’d rather know about it.”

“Are you sure you aren’t the one feeling off, senpai? I didn’t know you cared enough to go prying into my life.”

“Is that really such a strange thought?” Chikage’s eyes lock with his in the rear-view mirror. “It’d trouble me if something happened to you.”

Stunned, Itaru freezes and misses his window to turn right. It takes him a long moment to notice, and reality filters back in slowly; the rush of traffic in the other lanes, the foam of the steering wheel under his white knuckles, the car behind him honking its horn. Chikage’s unblinking gaze. He laughs, but it sounds breathy and forced to his ears. “Yeah, okay. I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Chigasaki. I mean it.”

His voice is low and serious. And Itaru absolutely cannot let himself dwell on the embarrassing thing his heart does when he considers that, maybe, he really does matter to Chikage. He swallows. “All right. Uh, to be honest, I’m not sure I want to talk about it yet? But if it becomes a real problem… yeah. I’ll talk to someone, at least.”

“Well. That’s fine.” Chikage looks down again and unlocks his phone, going back to reading. Itaru, spotting a gap in the oncoming traffic, takes his chance to finally make the turn. “It doesn’t need to be me.”

But the chaser to that one is obvious. Strangely so, actually. And Itaru might still be a fundamentally disappointing human most of the time, but even he can do this much.

“Senpai,” he blurts out. “I’d also be troubled if something happened to you. And… I don’t know. You’re going to hate hearing this, but. If something’s on your mind, it’s only fair to ask you to bother me with it, too.”

They hit a red light almost straight after rounding the corner, and Itaru takes the chance to let himself sneak a glance at his passenger. Chikage seems pensive, more than anything, which is probably a good sign.

“No, you’re right. It isn’t fair of me to insist that you share what’s bothering you if I’m not willing to play by the same rules. That’s… not what family’s supposed to do.”

That’s good. That’s progress. But part of Itaru can’t help but be disappointed, by whatever the prospect of being family might mean for the weird masochistic torch he seems to be carrying, and he kind of hates himself for it. And that isn’t helped by the fact Chikage keeps talking, heedless of the thoughts swirling around in his junior’s head.

“I’ll match your honesty, then. There’s been something on my mind as well recently. I’ve been letting myself get distracted by it, and chasing myself in circles, trying to work out a solution, but… I keep forgetting things don’t have to be that way any more. I’m too used to being on my own, even though I have people I can rely on again. And I appreciate the reminder.”

“Well, yeah. And just so you know, it doesn’t have to be me you talk to, either.”

But that’s a lie, or at least not the whole truth: because he does want to be Chikage’s first line of defense, no matter what trouble it is he’s facing. Because they’re roommates, and friends, and the two messed-up big brothers of Spring Troupe, and because, if Chikage isn’t talking to Itaru about his problems, it’s possible he isn’t talking to anyone. Just get it over with, the voice in his mind which sounds like his sister chimes in, except this time it sounds kind of like Sakyo as well. Rechecking his mirrors more out of nerves than any real need to keep an eye on the road, Itaru goes for broke. “But, you know, all things considered, I really wouldn’t mind if you did choose me –”

“Not this time.”

Chikage isn’t even looking at him as he delivers that, perfectly offhand, profile downturned as he focuses on his phone. So it’s lucky that they pull up outside the office building with perfect timing, because Itaru feels a lot like he’s been slapped. This is usually the point where Chikage hops out, abandoning Itaru to the perils of finding a parking space in their company’s serpentine garage, which is already mostly full by the time they arrive; but, perhaps conscious of how harsh that came off, he looks up, pockets his phone, and lingers.

“...You aren’t happy.”

“Huh?” Itaru busies himself with rifling through his keys for the remote to open the garage door. He goes past it at least twice by accident, and then once more on purpose, before managing to press the button. Next to the remote, his tiny Round Table Knight charm gazes blankly upward. “No, I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“I’m definitely fine. Besides, it’d be dumb to be cut up about something like this. You don’t owe me your true feelings, or anything like that.”

“That’s true, but I do owe it to you to not increase your unhappiness.”

“You aren’t. Promise.”

Chikage makes a thoughtful sound. “Still. If it helps, there’s a real and legitimate reason I’m not sharing this particular burden with you.”

“Not really,” Itaru says bluntly, “but thanks.”

The artificial light of the garage slides over them as they snake underground, and he watches his companion in his peripheral vision. Chikage’s washed out in his dark suit, bleached into something otherworldly, but his eyes remain unblinking behind his glasses. Even though they share a room, Itaru’s only ever seen him bare-faced during KniRoun rehearsals; and, even then, the experience had been diluted by the fact he had been playing a role so different from his real self.

Itaru wants to know what he’d look like without them. And not just that; to know what he’d look like without his composure, too. Not in the way he’d lost his composure before the first Charlatan of Oz performance, although that had been an important factor in getting Spring Troupe to fully accept him, but in a way beyond that. To watch all his masks shake open, under the force of something that can’t be contained; to know who he is under the acidity and the glibness. Or who he was, once, before the world twisted him into this.

To be honest, he opens his mouth to say, I want to know everything about you. But his companion speaks first, and the honesty on his tongue dissipates.

“There’s a parking over there.”

As far as warnings for being caught staring go, that one’s at least fairly mild. The open spot is on Itaru’s side of the car, a couple of metres further down, so he takes the chance he’s been given to look away. Flicking on his turn signal and swinging the steering wheel hard to the right – he’d really rather die than reverse into a space in this crowded garage, especially with other cars behind him – he manages to sneak into the parking, more or less, on the first try. It takes a little adjustment, but it still strikes him as a weirdly auspicious sign on an otherwise inauspicious day.

Chikage, unlike his driver for today, is the type who doesn’t idle around in parked cars. He gets out almost immediately, and adjusts his jacket, and Itaru copies him. But he lags behind as his senior heads for the elevator; and it takes an unusually long time for Chikage to realise that he isn’t following.

“Is something wrong?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just gonna tier a bit before I head up to the office.”

It’s a completely flimsy excuse. There’s no signal in this underground lot, and the building’s wi-fi doesn’t extend down here either. But, for some reason, Chikage doesn’t call him on it for once. Just looks at him a bit longer, then steps away.

“All right. Have a good day at work, Chigasaki.”

“You too,” Itaru echoes, and watches him until he disappears.

*

He can’t bring himself to go home with Chikage that afternoon, still too busy chewing over their conversation from earlier in the day. So he messages him at lunch, makes some excuse about needing to work late, and stays behind. And Itaru manages to burn the better part of an hour in the office – answering his least important emails, reorganising his desk, and covertly playing Solitaire – before deciding that’s probably enough time wasted to be plausible.

He takes the fire stairs down to the lobby, half so he can clandestinely punch out some Idlemeister lives and half so he can tick off his exercise quota for the day. Phone signal isn’t as strong in there, and he has to be careful about coordinating his steps or risk twisting an ankle, but that’s the tradeoff he has to make for getting his senior off his tail.

And the other benefits of pretending to work late are that the garage is emptier, and traffic on the way home a little lighter. Not to mention the fact that Itaru, in the absence of any inconvenient and highly judgmental passengers, can play whatever music he likes on the drive. Today, he’s in the mood for an album of selections from the KniRoun series, performed by a symphony orchestra sometime last year; he listens all the way through the medley of Lancelot’s themes from across the series, of course, but only makes it most of the way through Galahad’s, and partway into the Camelot medley, so he skips Mordred’s and Merlin’s in favour of Kay’s, blasts the choral sections of Gwen’s at the most obnoxious and window-shaking volume he can manage without shame, and lets the Avalon theme carry him home.

Around half the company are in the lounge when he returns, either to socialise or in anticipation of dinner, and they greet him with their usual rowdy cheer. The unmistakable scent of curry drifts from the kitchen, and Izumi spares him a wave before going back to her cooking. None of Spring Troupe are among them, with the exception of Tsuzuru conked out on a couch in his usual post-script coma, and so Itaru makes his way through the dorms mostly undisturbed. (Well, barring a loud taunt from Banri about getting lazy in his old age, which he chooses to ignore.)

But there’s an unexpected obstacle once he gets back to his place. While the door to room 103 is closed, there are voices coming from behind it. Itaru deliberates for a moment – because any conversation Chikage has to have in the privacy of his own room is probably important, and it bothers him to interrupt – but ultimately shrugs. So he knocks, more out of consideration for his roommate’s guest than his actual roommate, and lets himself in.

Chikage’s there, but it’s a little surprising to see that his companion today, seated across from him at their lounge suite, is Sakuya. They’re so completely different that, if Itaru didn’t regularly witness them interacting as part of Spring Troupe, it’d be easy for him to forget they get along at all. Still, it’s definitely shady that they’re not hanging out in common territory; and even shadier that Sakuya clams up at his arrival, even though he rallies almost as fast.

“Hey, Itaru! Welcome back.”

“Sakuya. I hope this guy hasn’t been trying to drag you into anything.”

It’s Chikage who answers. “Perish the thought, Chigasaki.”

“Hard to do that when I know how you treat your juniors. Especially the ones you actually like.”

“You’re making an awful lot of assumptions there.”

“Yeah, correct assumptions, because I’ve known you for literal years.”

“Why don’t you ask Sakuya for his opinion, instead of besmirching my character?”

When they turn to him, in strangely practiced unison, Sakuya’s eyes are very round. “There’s no dragging going on here. I promise!”

“Hmm. In that case, it seems you’re off the hook, senpai.”

“You’re much too kind.”

“Anyway!” Sakuya interjects, and stands up. “I have to get ready for work. You should think about what I said, though, Chikage.”

“I’ll make sure to do that. And I appreciate you hearing me out, of course.”

Chikage sees his guest out with little fanfare. The smile doesn’t fade from his lips after Sakuya goes, but it does dim slightly. And Itaru, launching himself backwards onto the couch, isn’t quite ready to drop the subject of how fishy that interaction was.

“Do I have to warn you off corrupting the children again?”

“You aren’t giving Sakuya enough credit. He’s incorruptible in all the ways that count.”

Well, he can agree on that. Their leader might be terrifyingly naive and prone to letting his good intentions get ahead of him, but he’s also the glue of Spring Troupe, and Itaru would do ridiculous things – has done ridiculous things, actually – to keep that pure heart intact.

“Probably. But that doesn’t mean you should test his limits.”

“I don’t plan to do that, either.”

Well, whatever. Ignoring his roommate, he turns his mind to reviewing his plans for the evening. It’s always possible that he’ll get roped into something or another by one of his dormmates, although that’s difficult to account for. Otherwise, the big thing on his plate is Spring Troupe practice, even without Sakuya, but that’s only after dinner. So his best bet is probably to grind Idlemeister while he queues for dungeons in LFVIX. He’s still salty about not getting that damn armour drop, after all. Still, though, he feels like there’s something he’s forgetting. Something he’s supposed to be doing that’s eluding him –

Oh yeah. He may not recall everything that happened last night, but he does remember that, bizarrely, he owes Sakyo a dating sim recommendation.

Resigning himself, Itaru levers himself up and shuffles over to his bookshelves. He owns most of his games in hard copy, out of a combination of favouring limited-edition releases and an increasing distrust of playing games through streaming services, and his dating sim library is no exception. It’s the second biggest genre represented in his collection, beaten only by RPGs, which are a genre he’s been playing for far longer, and far more freely. Crouching down, he inspects the lay of the land. He has a roughly even number of bishoujo and otome titles, complemented by a smattering of BL, and a couple of yuri games; the difference is that most of his bishoujo games are older, from the time before he’d realised that nobody could stop him from buying games about romancing men too, and gone on to do just that.

But that’s not what he’s here for today, and Itaru runs his fingers against the spines of his bishoujo collection as he thinks. In truth, a whole lot of games include romanceable heroines that look and act kind of like Izumi, and he’s a little stumped which to start with. At the very least, he can strike out all of his 18+ games on principle: not only does Sakyo live with a junior high kid, and a finicky junior high kid at that, but it’d probably offend his sensibilities. And also be really uncomfortable.

Still, from that point, he has to whittle down his options one by one. The game he’d used to prank Masumi after Alex in Wonderland? No, that feels like too loaded a choice, and he can’t risk Masumi somehow finding out and being weird about it. Maybe the all-ages version of Great/day knight? No, that’s probably too fantastical for someone so down-to-earth. One of the Mokiteki Memorium games? No, Sakyo’s probably too old to enjoy a game about high schoolers, even one that’s so aggressively chaste about it. Plannad? Same issue. As much as he claims to be willing to read anything, Sakyo really does seem like a difficult customer to please.

After cutting down all his other options, he’s left tossing up between a game about romancing the members of a university’s struggling gardening club, a poor seller that’s nevertheless become a cult classic due to its mature handling of difficult themes, and a game about romancing gender-flipped samurai in the Sengoku era, which is surprisingly historically accurate despite that change. In the end, he ends up going with the former. Sakyo’s probably more likely to appreciate the parallels between Izumi and Hanamichi Hanako, the headstrong sophomore single-handedly keeping Senbonzakura Uni’s botanical society together, than he is between Izumi and – Itaru squints as he skims the information on the samurai game’s packaging, because it really has been a while – Tokugawa Ieyasu reimagined as an anime girl. Wow, bullet dodged.

Decision made, he slips the case out of its position. Toes on his shoes, makes some excuse to Chikage, and trots down the hall.

Nobody answers when Itaru knocks on the door of room 106, even though the lights are on behind it. Frowning, he tucks the game under his other arm and tries a little louder. And when, at last, the door creaks inward, he’s greeted by its other inhabitant.

“Hey. Sakyo in?”

Azami gives him a narrow look. Probably inspecting his face for the tiniest imperfection, for some excuse to go off on a year-long lecture about the impact his nocturnal hours and junk-food diet are having on his skin. Well, he isn’t going to find anything out of the ordinary; Itaru might make terrible lifestyle choices, but he’s also been cheating by slapping on sheet masks every couple of nights, and the system hasn’t failed him yet. At last, the kid stops scrutinising him and deigns to answer. “Nah. He and Ken went off together maybe half an hour ago, didn’t say when they’d be back. You need him for something?”

“Just making a delivery.”

It takes a moment, after he hands over the game, for Azami to process what it is he’s been given. And it’s easy to tell when he figures out what he’s holding; he just about squawks, which is a really ridiculous noise to hear coming from someone taller than Itaru, and nearly drops the case at least three times in his hurry to pass it back.

“Why are you giving this to Sakyo!”

That’s a little harsh when the game isn’t even an eroge, but he doubts pointing that out will get him anywhere. Itaru tucks his arms behind his back, neatly avoiding Azami’s next attempt to push the game back into his hands, and tries to focus. “We went for drinks last night, and the subject came up. Figured maybe he’d enjoy it, since he’s always reading shoujo manga and romance novels and stuff.”

“No way. There’s a huge difference between stuff like that and… and s-smut… like this.”

If he was a better person, or perhaps a less emotionally exhausted one, Itaru absolutely wouldn’t needle this poor boy about his reaction – this poor boy who’ll need to unlearn his years of puritanical Sakyo conditioning if he’s ever going to have a relationship, no less. But as it is, he’s both thoroughly mediocre and thoroughly in need of some entertainment, so he definitely isn’t above toeing the hornet’s nest of Azami’s weird romance takes. “Oh yeah? Honestly, I’m surprised you even know enough about dating sims to make that distinction.”

“I know enough to know there definitely is one.” Azami’s holding the game gingerly by one corner of its case, like a whiff of its foul romantic stench might rub off on his lily-white fingers. “Aren’t things like this for people who can’t get girlfriends?”

Itaru’s first instinct, honed through years of caring too much about video games, is to leap to the defense of the noble medium of the dating sim. Most people don’t truly understand its appeal, after all, writing those games off as fantasies for lonely virgins without appreciating their complexity, or their replayability, or their emotional depth, or even just the role fantasy can play for the truly lonely. But then he remembers why he’s lending this game to Sakyo, probably the only man in Mankai with a romantic dry spell even longer than Itaru’s, and certainly the only man with a dry spell that seems to be completely self-inflicted; and that, the other night, Itaru had clandestinely gone hunting through his otome and BL section in search of a game with an aloof megane-type love interest, before he’d realised that, first, that was only a slightly less weird coping method than vicariously reading KniRoun IV The Stage fanfiction, and second, that if he went ahead with the playthrough, the odds were a hundred percent that Chikage would walk into their room at the worst possible part of the route. So, under the circumstances, it’s probably a little of column A and a little of column B. “That depends.”

“On what??”

“On if you’re playing them because you can’t get a girlfriend, or if you’re playing them cause you actually like them.”

Azami regards him coolly. “And how would you know the difference?”

“Hey –” Itaru starts, but it’s too late. Azami, having decisively gotten the last word in, has already withdrawn into his room, but at least he’s taken Sakyo’s dating sim with him. Hopefully he’ll actually pass it along, although the odds on that one seem difficult to gauge.

“I could completely get a girlfriend,” he tells the door of room 106. “You don’t know me.”

Of course, he gets no answer. And as he turns his back on the door, trying to put that inopportune comment behind him, he doesn’t think he’s imagining the muffled sound of Azami snorting.

*

Azami’s question takes up an awful amount of Itaru’s mental real estate for the rest of the night, and most of the next day. It’s true he’s been single his whole life; and it’s also true that, for a lot of that time, he’s buried the complicated way that makes him feel under a mountain of video games. And Chikage is clever and surprisingly loyal and easy on the eyes and always, somehow, completely himself despite his constant duplicity. And to be honest, it doesn’t seem impossible that Itaru’s just so used to loneliness that he’s attached himself to the first person willing to tolerate him.

Not that it isn’t still a moot question for a million different reasons. He still has no plans to ever do anything about his feelings, especially when they’re still this mild, and probably all in his head anyway.

But then, suddenly, they aren’t.

It goes something like this: an ordinary Spring Troupe practice, an ordinary series of etude exercises. Citron gets placed with Masumi; Chikage, with Tsuzuru. Itaru gets paired with Sakuya, and told to put particular focus on body language and their distance from each other. Nothing unusual.

Practice, too, begins normally enough. The two of them may not have co-starred in a play yet, but they’ve still been working together for a long time now. Sakuya’s improved by leaps and bounds since they first started, and somehow manages to keep on improving, and it makes Itaru want to push himself too.

In their first etude, Sakuya is a dog walker, and Itaru a client who needs to be convinced to part with his prized chihuahua for the morning. In their second, they’re a pair of conmen, Itaru going through the motions of three-card monte, while Sakuya acts as his plant in the invisible crowd. After their third, Sakuya asks to take a break to fetch his drink.

Left to his own devices, and yet without enough time on his hands to make going for his phone worth it, Itaru sort of just idles. The director is tucked away in one corner, watching them carefully without getting in the way. Masumi and Citron are still in the middle of their act; Masumi as a college student turning in a late paper, and Citron as the professor asking why he shouldn’t fail him on the spot. And Chikage –

Across the room, talking to Tsuzuru between etudes, Chikage’s face is unguarded. When he glances up, he makes eye contact with Itaru. But, for once, he doesn’t immediately shutter his feelings away: instead, he lets them sit. Lets himself concede, for a second, that he’s happy. That there really is nowhere he’d rather be than here, with Spring Troupe.

Itaru’s heart lodges in his throat.

It had been easy to manage his interest in Chikage so long as he could tell himself it was just physical; meaningless chemistry, the kind he’d probably have felt around any moderately handsome guy who bothered to look his way, and bothered to get to know him. But that’s not what this is. Not any more, and maybe it never was.

Because chemistry alone doesn’t explain why he can’t breathe. Why he can’t tell if his heart has stopped, or if it’s racing, or if he’s just imagining it either way. Why he wants to know how that smile feels under his fingers, against his lips. Why he wants to stay in this moment, in the dying light of a summer evening, orange-gold caught in Chikage’s fringe and the creases around his eyes, with no more pretenses; because if either of them looks away, and one of them eventually will, it’ll be as if this moment never happened. Why he has to push down his disappointment when Chikage turns to Tsuzuru, and their shared secret dissipates.

And when he finally drags his attention back to his own partner, Sakuya’s watching him carefully. His expression is neutral, and Itaru flounders. Because the tricky thing about Sakuya is that, as innocent as he is, he’s strangely good at cutting to the crux of things when it matters. And, well… at this point, with his heart a heavy lump at the base of his tongue, Itaru can’t deny that his feelings for his roommate definitely matter.

“Sorry,” he says. “We should keep going.”

Sakuya’s eyebrows draw together. “If you’re sure you’re fine to.”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Slept kinda badly, I guess, but that’s not new.”

“...It isn’t just that, though, is it.”

“I mean.” He swallows. “Hey, Sakuya. Do you think I’m a coward?”

“No, I don’t, and I never have. But why are you asking?”

“No reason. I mean, no reason that you need to worry about. I swear I’ve got things under control, so don’t stress on my behalf, leader.”

“Itaru,” Sakuya says, as serious as he is abrupt. His frown deepens; a strange, sorrowful thing. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”

The two of them can’t possibly be talking about the same subject, or having two halves of the same conversation. But Sakuya says it with such force, such genuine conviction, that it feels like it has to be true; like he can’t imagine a world where everyone doesn’t end up happy. Like Itaru hadn’t accidentally gone all-in on his impossible feelings, with a useless hand, before he’d even realised it.

“Yeah,” he says. Like the only options he has left aren’t to fold or lose. “I hope so.”

*

“You,” Banri says, hovering meaningfully in front of Itaru’s doorway, “came second.”

In his defense, it’s true. Itaru’s heart hadn’t really been in tiering Idlemeister, not towards the end of the event, and it had shown in his points total: taruchi landing a distant couple of million behind the top-ranked NEO. But, much less in Banri’s defense, he’s picked an awful time to gloat about his victory. Itaru stares at him for a moment longer, then closes the door in his face.

Nuisance that he is, Banri starts knocking again almost immediately. “Hey,” his muffled voice calls, “let me in!”

“Nope. No pests allowed.”

“Real mature.”

“I don’t wanna hear about maturity from you.”

“Itaruuuuuuuuuu.” Then the tone of his voice changes. “For real, though, can I talk to you about something?”

The odds are fifty-fifty that this is a ruse. But being the older half of this friendship also means he has to be the bigger man, even if that means setting himself up to get rused sometimes. At least Chikage isn’t around to witness him getting dunked on, if that’s indeed what’s about to happen, which is a small mercy. So Itaru heaves the loudest sigh he possibly can, and unlocks the door. “Fine.”

Banri slopes in, the same as he always does, but his expression is serious. No ruse, then. And when he parks himself across Itaru’s entire sofa, he doesn’t even start out with a request for snacks. Just looks at his host, straight-faced, until the silence stretches into something uncomfortable, and he clears his throat.

“Hey, uh. Sit down too?”

“This is my room.”

“Yeah, but I hate having to crane my neck like this.”

So Itaru wheels his gaming chair over and sits across from him. He has a vague feeling of dread about this whole conversation, but admitting as much will only draw this torture out even longer. “Alright. Ready to spit it out yet?”

Banri chews his lip. “Yeah, okay. So. About the Idlemeister event that just finished, where Miko was the SSR, that we agreed to compete in. The one where you came second.”

“Yes,” he says tersely, “what about it.”

“Jeez, no, I’m not trying to be a dick. Cause the point I was gettin’ to is, I know taruchi. And I like to think I know you pretty well too by now, Itaru. And I know you’d never drop the #1 position in an event that badly, especially to me, unless something big came up.” Banri leans back, looks at him dead-on. “So. What came up?”

Even though Banri’s in the same age bracket as most of Spring Troupe, Itaru likes to try and maintain a slightly different dynamic with him. Not that he’s any less invested in their relationship, or that Banri doesn’t also occupy the weird niche of being both friend and family, or anything like that; just that Itaru doesn’t have quite the same big-brotherly responsibility to someone in Autumn Troupe, and he absolutely doesn’t envy Sakyo for trying to keep his obnoxious delinquent ass in line. Which means he can get a little messier around Banri than he can around Sakuya or Masumi – but, still, he probably does have to draw the line at admitting the extent of his romantic crisis about Chikage.

“Long story.”

“Nuh-uh. You’re not getting out of this one that easy.”

“No, really, it’s a long story and it’s not worth repeating. I’ve got it under control now, though. So, the next time you wanna compete in an event, I’ll send you home with your tail between your legs twice over.”

“Hey, I’m seriously asking. Like, I’m actually concerned for your wellbeing here, man.”

It’s true; from the moment he first knocked on the door, there hasn’t been even one crack in Banri’s unsmiling expression. And, well… maybe it’d be good to get a second opinion on things, from someone who isn’t Sakyo. Itaru sighs, giving himself over to his fate, and rubs at his eyes.

“Fine! Fine. Just between you and me, though?”

“Swear on my life.”

Unlike with Sakyo, this time Itaru doesn’t have the advantage of alcohol. And the idea of telling someone younger than him is stressful in a different way than telling someone older – to say nothing of the stress of telling Settsu Banri, who’d never struggle with something as banal as this, and will someday probably have the girl (or boy?) of his dreams fall right into his arms. Still, their friendship has to count for something.

“Well. I guess I kind of… have feelings for someone now? Maybe? And I’ve been kinda distracted by thinking about that. Like, I’ve been into people before, but I’m pretty seriously into him. Which makes me wonder how I want to move forward with it, if I want to move forward with it at all. Because I have zero relationship experience, and I feel like I’m this close to ruining things just by feeling this way, and I’m definitely going to ruin things if I tell him my feelings, and that all means I can never act on it. So. Yeah.”

“Oh, okay. That wasn’t a long story at all, but I guess I can see why you didn’t wanna admit it.” Banri sits up a little straighter. “So it’s Chikage, right?”

Itaru pulls a face. “Not you, too. Was it really that obvious?”

“I mean, to everyone with eyes, yeah. So Spring Troupe probably still don’t know.”

Actually, he’s ninety-nine percent sure Citron had winked at him during practice the other day, after he and Chikage had pulled off a particularly convincing etude about an estranged husband and wife. But, since Citron’s now managed to roll two copies of Summer Lancelot on the current banner in the KniRoun mobage, and Itaru still doesn’t even have one, he’s not feeling particularly inclined to defend him.

“God,” he says. “Yeah, okay.”

“You gonna tell him?”

“I should. Eventually.”

“...Hey, Itaru. Even if you’ve never been in a relationship, you’ve still confessed to people before, right?”

He opens his mouth, closes it again. His jaw works as he tries to figure out how to answer that; but Banri draws the right conclusion from his silence.

“You haven’t, have you.”

“I don’t see how that’s important.”

“I mean, it explains why you’re dragging your feet. You’re actin’ like a schoolgirl about this, but you and Chikage’re both adults. I really don’t think saying something to him is gonna be as bad as you think.”

“It’s my call. I’ll drag my feet as much as I want to.”

“Okay, sure, but I really think you should tell him soon. You’re just gonna work yourself up even more if you keep sitting on it.”

The worst part, he thinks, is that Banri is being so good about this. Their friendship started out based on the spirit of friendly competition, on constant shit-talking and almost never having to actually level with each other. It usually doesn’t come to this kind of crunch; and, to be honest, it’s much easier to deal with Banri as a rival than this newer, strangely mature Banri, handing out good advice like he means it. Itaru tries to stamp down his irritation, but he doesn’t quite make it, and it spills messily out.

“That’s easy for you to say. Everything’s always cruisy for you, isn’t it? You could probably confess your love to, I don’t know, the Queen of England, and have her accept your feelings. But I’m not you, Banri. I have a terrible personality, and I’m probably always going to like most games more than most people, and I’m kind of disappointing all round. Even though I’ve grown this much thanks to Mankai Company, I’m still… I don’t know. Just me, deep down.”

“That’s kinda not the point, though? Cause you’re not telling just anyone your feelings; you’re telling Chikage. He already knows what you’re like.”

“So you agree that I’m disappointing?”

The joke falls flat, and Banri just scowls at him. “Dude. I’m trying to give you real advice here. I meant that you can fool the outside world with that salaryman-by-day, gamer-by-night act, but you can’t fool us. Not your friends, not the people you live with, and definitely not the roommate who had to deal with your miserable ass after you burned half your savings whaling for maxed-out anime girl Okita Souji.”

“She was a limited SSR,” Itaru insists, because it’s honestly still a sore spot. “And I had no idea when she’d be coming back.What was I going to do, not fully uncap her?”

“The point is, he had to lure you out of your room the next day by promising you pizza, and he still flirts with you all the fuckin’ time. He likes you plenty, man.”

It’s honestly starting to worry him that Banri’s opinion has, so far, lined up with Sakyo’s, despite how incredibly different they are as people. Because that means there might actually be hope, and he’s not prepared to let himself entertain that if it won’t turn out to be real. So, instead, Itaru changes tack and fights for more equal footing. “Whatever. You’ve never been in a relationship, or ever really liked someone, right? Not sure I want to take advice from you.”

“Well, I mean, no, but… I’m pretty sure I know how I’d treat someone I like. By being honest with ‘em, mostly. So be honest with him too.”

“Yeah, but what about – ugh.” Itaru scrubs at his face, suddenly reluctant to pursue this irrelevant and frankly mean-spirited line of conversation. “Sorry I’m being such a dick. It’s just… I’m under a lot of pressure about this, I guess. Hard to feel like myself.”

“Nah, you’re fine. You can pay me back by… hang on. Hang on.” And, without warning, Banri’s wearing his usual shit-eating grin. “By helping me out when I need romance advice.”

“For real? Did you miss the part where I have no clue about any of this stuff?”

“Well, that won’t be the case by then, will it? Not if you man up and talk to Chikage about your feelings.”

“You’re really disgustingly optimistic about this.”

“Yeah, well, one of us has to be.” Seemingly satisfied by the results of his interrogation, Banri stands and stretches, and trots over to the door. “‘Kay, then I’m off. Good luck with the confession thing, yeah? Invite me to the wedding.”

“Fuck you!” Itaru calls, even though he’s already left, and knows that Banri can hear him smiling.

*

When Itaru gets home from work the next day, he finds the game he had lent to Sakyo in a bag hooked over his door handle. Well, good to know that it had reached its intended target, and not been burned by Azami in a fit of pique. And there’s a letter slipped in with it, too; an incredibly bold move when Chikage, a cheat character with unknown skills, also lives here, and is almost definitely capable of reading a letter and returning it to its envelope undetected.

Still, he’s more than a little curious about what Sakyo has to say. Stepping inside, shucking his blazer and shoes and tie, and settling on the couch, Itaru pries the letter open and begins to read.

To begin with: I appreciated you letting me borrow this game. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to fully appreciate the medium, and I won’t have time to play any of the other paths, but it was an interesting way to experience a love story. I particularly enjoyed the voice acting, which I thought was surprisingly professional.

I see why you selected this one for me, too. Hanako was passionate and hard-working, forthright and strangely naive about love, but she wasn’t… well, you know who she wasn’t. And the further I got into her story, the more she felt like a paltry imitation of the real thing. The more ashamed I became of myself, too, for not having the courage to be honest about my feelings.

I won’t tell her, not yet. It still isn’t the right time for me to act on this. But – now I know that I will, someday. That I owe it to myself, and to her, to eventually confront my cowardice. And that day doesn’t feel as far away as it once used to. Thank you.

Yours,
S.

“Jeez,” Itaru mutters, half fond and half gently exasperated. He folds the letter and returns it to the envelope, then crosses his legs over each other. It’s difficult for him to remember what Tipsy Itaru’s thought process had been, in lending a thirty-year-old man a dating sim he could use to exorcise his feelings about his longtime crush, but he’s pretty sure his inebriated self hadn’t assumed that it would lead to actual romantic progress. Sure, Sakyo’s idea of someday might still mean when it snows on the tallest mountains of hell rather than when every inch of hell freezes over, but that’s still tangible forward motion.

And, besides. If even Sakyo can conquer his fear and be honest about his feelings, with everything he has at stake, then Itaru has no excuse not to do the same.

Well then.

He wets his lips as he thinks, trying to figure out the best angle to approach this. He knows himself, and he knows that if he doesn’t give himself a hard deadline, he’s likely to keep squirming out of a confession forever. Maybe he should say something at drinks tomorrow? No, that feels too soon, and he hasn’t fully prepared himself for it. On the other hand, though, the middle of the month is a good time to get rejected: with most of his mobage events having just wrapped up, no high-profile console games slated to come out, and LFVIX’s summer event not dropping for another week or two, he should have a little time to let himself feel miserable before anything important happens.

(And, okay, it helps that Spring Troupe aren’t scheduled to be doing much at the moment, either. He’s allowed to be out of it for a couple of practices, but he’d never actually let his misery seriously hurt Mankai Company.)

Actually, when he thinks about it like that, he should probably just bite the bullet. Tomorrow. He’ll definitely do it tomorrow.

Just then, the key clicks in room 103’s lock, and his head jerks up. Acting more out of reflex than anything, he stuffs Sakyo’s letter into his pocket; it’ll absolutely be crumpled, but better that than for Chikage to catch even a whiff of intrigue, because that’s going to raise too many questions he doesn’t need to know the answers to.

Chikage enters in his usual businesslike manner, paying no heed to the room’s other occupant, except for an incidental look from over his glasses. “I’m home.”

“Welcome back, senpai.”

Itaru tamps down a rush of inexplicable fondness as he watches him move around the room with purpose; getting rid of his shoes, hanging up his blazer, loosening his tie. He himself is still in his own suit pants, and he can feel them creasing as he sprawls, but whatever. Another couple of minutes of lounging around can’t make it that much worse.

Finally, once Chikage’s shed most of his outer layers and has ensconced himself in his usual seat, he turns to Itaru properly. “While I have you, I wanted to talk about tomorrow.”

“Oh, good timing. I was about to message you to work out details. So, listen, I figured we’d probably go straight after work, which means I can’t drive us there? Cause I definitely don’t wanna be sober enough to drive by the end. Which, I guess, means we’ll cab back to the dorm, and split the fare. And as for actual places, I’m kinda feeling an izakaya or something, because –”

“No, that wasn’t what I was going to say. Sorry, but I’ll have to cancel our plans.”

The world seems to tilt off its axis, lurching grotesquely around Itaru like a carnival ride. Even after it spins to a stop, the roaring in his ears persists, a distant sea still threatening to wash him away. “Huh?”

“I said that I’d have to cancel.” Chikage’s eyes are very distant. “Something came up.”

“What kind of something?”

“That doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we can reschedule –”

Is he angry? He thinks, in the part of his mind still capable of functioning, that he might actually be really angry about this. “Yeah, don’t bother.”

“Chigasaki –”

Itaru cuts the conversation short by standing up, and stalking away. He boots up his PC with an irritated jab of the power button, then sweeps over to his wardrobe, and takes his time choosing his lazing-around clothes for the night. Then back to his PC, to punch in his password. Then behind the screen he uses to get changed, when he can’t be bothered to chase his roommate out, and back to his wardrobe to hang up his slacks.

And, when he finally pulls himself out of his head, having mellowed out a little and ready to think about talking compromise, Chikage is already gone.

*

The only upshot of suddenly having no plans the next night is that, after work, Itaru can finally get himself together and grind his way to five copies of Summer Gawain. It takes him hours, excluding a short break for dinner, running his least interesting and most efficient setup, and without letting himself skip the cutscenes. And when he uncaps the card for the last time, its art changes; winking lifeguard Gawain melts into an image of Gawain dyed gold by the sunset, face split in half by a heartfelt smile, hand extended towards the player.

But it’s difficult to feel any real sense of victory about it, not when he had to scrape in at the last minute to get even one copy. And Itaru’s about to turn off his phone and toss it somewhere when a text message comes through. Feeling thoroughly unsociable, he nearly decides to ignore it, just to spite whoever’s contacting him when he’s trying to brood; but he’s skimmed the notification almost without meaning to, and it makes his heart kick a little.

...Chikage?

>I need you to come pick me up.

>what
>why
>did you cancel on me to go drinking with someone else

>No.
>I’ll explain when you get here.
>Be quick, and don’t tell anyone where you’re going.

Chikage sends through his live location: he’s all the way on the other side of town, for some inexplicable reason. Itaru takes a moment to let himself stare at the map. It really is just like his troublesome senior to make a difficult request with no warning, and with no meaningful explanation, and after they’d left off on a terrible note, and with the full expectation that he’s going to be able to follow through. And yet… and yet.

>omw

It only takes a minute for him to change into something more socially acceptable, slip on shoes, and grab his wallet and keys. He paces through the lounge room like a man with newly kindled purpose – but, of course, escaping isn’t quite that easy.

“Hey,” Banri calls from where he’s parked on the couch, amongst a cluster of Spring and Autumn Troupers all playing on their phones, “where’re you going?”

Wait, shit, he isn’t supposed to tell the truth about this. So Itaru scrambles for the first excuse he can think of for why he’s leaving the dorms after dinner, dressed like a human being for once. “Snack run. My stash is on its last legs, and I wanna run some dungeons later.”

“Oh, dude, perfect timing. Can you get potato chips? Honey soy, or salt and vinegar if they don’t have that. I’ll pay you back.”

“Yeah, sure. Whatever.”

Then Taichi raises his head, too. “If you’re going to 11/7, can you buy me a soda? They’re meant to be getting these limited edition cans in weird flavours, like chocolate and yogurt and onigiri. And I really wanna try one, but I haven’t found any yet.”

Citron: “A box of traditional Japanese Wocky sticks for me, Itaru!”

Even Masumi gets in on it. “...I’m out of instant ramen. I had to feed the last of mine to Tsuzuru.”

“This isn’t a grocery run, you guys,” Itaru grumbles. “So you’re all paying me back. And just as a heads-up, I might be a while, but whatever. Anyone else?”

The boys shuffle among themselves for a moment, but thankfully, no more requests are forthcoming. So he jots their requests down in a phone memo, and then makes his exit.

In the car, Itaru sets his navigation app to chart a course for the location Chikage had sent through. He’s now a block or two away from his original position, but at least he’s still in the same area, and he isn’t moving very fast.

>eta ~30
>don’t move, senpai

The reply comes through almost immediately.

>Got it.

This late at night, the city blurs seamlessly past him, deep shadow and points of light. He hits a lucky string of traffic signals a little while in, which cuts a good five minutes off his expected time. But it doesn’t feel like he’s closing the distance fast enough, either. Because Chikage could be in serious trouble, or he could just be too lazy to call a cab, and there’s no way at all of knowing which, and Itaru’s really over the feeling of being in the dark all the time.

But, at last, he arrives. The neighbourhood Chikage’s led him to is mostly industrial, all concrete and warehouses. His car’s headlights catch on chain-link fences, slide over graffitied walls, cast the darkness even deeper. So Itaru slows down to a crawl, and busies himself with scanning the area for any sign of his roommate. This is definitely the road indicated by the old location, and – he checks again – yeah, he should still be somewhere around here.

It’s not long until a shadow detaches itself from a building further down the street, and starts moving towards him. He watches it warily, hand still resting on the gearstick in case he has to make a break for it, but then it resolves into a familiar shape.

Itaru rolls down the passenger window, and Chikage leans shakily on the sill. His blazer is draped loosely over his shoulders, elbows tucked close to his sides. And his eyes are too bright, and his skin too pale under the streetlamps, and he looks like he’s been sweating more than he should, even on a summer night like this.

“Chigasaki. How unexpected.”

“Yeah, yeah. I was about to message you, so, how did you know that I’d arrived?”

“I told you. I installed a tracking device in your phone, so I could tell when you were approaching.”

“Ha. Stop joking around and get in.”

Chikage opens the door. When he sits, his jacket shifts a little with the motion, and a bloodstain on his shirt peeks out from underneath. It’s low on his right side, a deep rust-red between where his ribs end and his hip begins. And there’s a thin slash in the fabric, the kind that a knife might leave behind, or maybe a bullet. Itaru has to look away or risk being sick.

“I’m ready,” Chikage says, casual as ever, as if he hasn’t just bared a possibly life-threatening wound. “Let’s go.”

“But – your side. You’re injured.”

“It’s fine. I cleaned and stitched it up myself.”

“That’s insane, senpai. Like, genuinely one-hundred percent insane. We have to get you to a hospital.”

“You can’t. They’ll find out if a man matching my description visited a city hospital, and they didn’t hit anything important anyhow.”

“Hey, uh, who exactly are you up against that you’re getting stabbed in alleyways – actually, you know what? Don’t tell me. I’m really not sure I need to know.”

“You don’t. That said, though, the other party got off worse than I did.”

He can’t tell if he’s more angry or upset. Only that he’s deeply unhappy about this whole business; about Chikage going off alone, without warning, to confront someone who may well have killed him. Because Itaru might be useless in a fight, but he thinks even he’s allowed to raise an objection. “It’s not the other party I’m worried about!”

“I appreciate the outrage, but… please, Chigasaki. Take me home.”

Well, he can’t really say no to that. So Itaru checks his mirrors, flicks his turn signal, then pulls away from the curb.

The navigation app on his phone gives them twenty-five minutes until they make it back to the dorm. And they make most of that drive in a thick, suffocating silence. The more he thinks about it, the more he realises he’s definitely really annoyed about this, but he also knows he won’t get anything out of making it into an argument. And it’s even worse because Chikage keeps making a face like he wants to speak, and then fighting it back. So, somewhere between the tenth and fifteenth time he does that, like he’s once again thought better of being honest, Itaru decides he’s sick of it.

“So. What happened tonight?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Like hell you can’t, senpai. You have to talk about it with someone, and it might as well be me.”

“No I don’t. I swore to myself, when I joined Spring Troupe, that I’d keep the rest of the company out of my affairs.”

“Then don’t tell them. Just tell me, and I’ll keep your secret.”

The air freshener dangling from Itaru’s rear-view rattles as they go over a speed bump. Above it, the mirror reveals a strange uncertainty in Chikage’s eyes. It persists even after he blinks; even after he meets Itaru’s gaze there.

“There was a threat I had to take care of,” he says at last. “To keep everyone else safe. And there were more of them than I expected.”

“You said the other party got off worse. Are they…” Itaru grips the steering wheel a little harder, makes himself keep his attention on the road. “Are they dead?”

Chikage exhales. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay. All right. Well. I’m glad you’re alive.”

“As am I. And, to be honest, you’re dealing with this situation better than I expected.”

“I think I’m too angry with you for going off alone to be terrified.”

“I did expect that much, though. And I probably deserve it.”

“You do.” He makes himself breathe. “Next question. Why did you ask me to come get you, and not anyone else?”

“Because, of everyone at Mankai with a car, you were most likely to be on your phone and see my message.”

But Itaru’s exhausted. By this conversation, and the fact he’s been sleeping badly, and the fact he’s had tonight’s relaxation interrupted by this last-minute favour; but also by this artificial distance they maintain, by this masquerade where they treat each other like family one second and glance off each other the next. By still not knowing Chikage’s true feelings, and the realities of his heart, and if, when he got injured tonight and his life had flashed before his eyes, Itaru had featured as any more than a footnote. “No, senpai, I don’t think I can do this any more. Tell me honestly: this little errand of yours. Did it have to be me?”

Chikage lets that question sit for a long while; long enough that it forms a lump in Itaru’s throat, too big to swallow down and too important to take back. When he answers, it’s with his head still facing straight-on, and only the shift of his eyes indicates that he isn’t talking to himself. “I messaged you because, as my roommate, you were the obvious choice. And because you have a car, and I knew you would hurry to get me, no matter what you were actually doing. But it was also because I knew I could trust you not to tell anyone, even if you were unhappy about it. And because I knew your opinion of me wouldn’t change too much, if you were to find me bleeding in an alleyway, on the wrong side of town. And because… I didn’t want to cancel on you tonight. I really did want to come and meet you for drinks.”

“You did?”

“I did. Tonight was the night I was planning to tell you about my feelings, after all.”

Itaru processes that with surprising fluidity, but then his brain trips over itself, and he nearly slams on the brakes far too hard. “If this is another one of your lies –”

“Chigasaki.” Chikage’s breath does something vulnerable and rattly. “Itaru. Stop the car.”

In an ideal, suitably dramatic world, he’d have pulled over immediately. But, as it is, they’re in a no-stopping zone, and it’s another couple of blocks before Itaru can actually do that, and he spends the whole time trying to keep his pulse under control.

After what feels like a thousand years, he finally manages to pull over. He throws the car into park, and yanks up the handbrake, and the absence of the engine is deafening. Then he undoes his seatbelt, and half-turns towards his passenger. And Chikage is already facing inwards, waiting to meet him.

“Tell me.” His voice comes out scratchy, desperate. “Tell me what it is you want to say. No more lies, or jokes, or tricks. Please.”

“Would you prefer the short version, or the long version?”

“The honest one.”

‘All right. The honest version, then, is that you distract me. And I don’t… it doesn’t make sense. Speaking frankly, Chigasaki, you aren’t anything special.”

“Ouch. Thanks.”

“But. Even though that’s the case, you’re on my mind so often. And tonight, when I had an important job to do, to help protect everyone at Mankai, I kept wondering about what you might be doing. If you resented me for cancelling our plans. If you’d give me the chance to reschedule them again.”

Itaru’s lightheaded, drunk on the possibility that this conversation might be going where he thinks it is. It feels like reality is warping around him, but if this is a hallucination, he’s pretty sure he never wants to escape it. “No lies?”

“No lies. Because it’s irrational, but you… matter to me. And I didn’t know what to do with these feelings, or how to understand them, or how to get a handle on myself again, except to be honest. But I thought I might be able to exorcise them if I told you.”

That’s a lot to take in. And before he answers, he takes a moment to appreciate that he – Chigasaki Itaru, stunningly mediocre human being, and NPC in his own life until last year – has the upper hand over his smart and cool senior, for once. Because it’s probably never going to happen again, especially from hereon out.

“Well. Lucky you matter to me, too, isn’t it.”

Chikage says, in a tone of voice he’s never heard before, “Chigasaki –”

“I’m serious. I can’t get you out of my head, either, and I… I’ve been so hung up on the fact I don’t know how you see me. Or what I was supposed to be to you. So, to be honest, I’m kinda glad you’ve been chasing yourself in circles about this as well. Cause I thought I was being so obvious about the fact you were throwing me off. Like… who else could it have been?” But that still isn’t quite right; or, more accurately, not enough of what is. “I mean. I want you to keep thinking about me too much, senpai. I want to keep mattering to you. And I don’t want you out of my head, either.”

It’s true. And even if he could have worded it better, or rambled less, or been more romantic about it – they’ve managed to arrive at that truth together.

“Actually,” Chikage admits. “I did think that maybe your feelings were the same as mine. Or, at least, that it wasn’t entirely impossible.”

“Wow, okay. I knew you thought pretty highly of yourself, but that’s a whole new level.”

“I wasn’t entirely certain. And, in my defense, I did turn out to be right.”

“Yeah, well –” Itaru cuts his eyes away, playing at being offended; but then his gaze lands on a white neon sign a little further down the road. It’s a convenience store, and an 11/7 at that, and it makes his brain kick at the inside of the skull. “Oh, shit.”

“What is it?”

“You know how you said I couldn’t tell anyone where I was going? Well, I panicked and told the guys back at the dorm that I was going on a snack run, and now it’s going to look weird if I show up empty-handed. So. Hope you’re excited to go to 11/7, I guess.”

“You’re already going to look weird showing up unannounced with me,” Chikage comments. “But you should keep your promises.”

So Chikage puts on his blazer properly, hiding his wound. And they get out of the car, and walk down a couple of blocks, and head into the 11/7. And they buy Banri’s chips, and Taichi’s weird chocolate soda, and Citron’s Wocky, and Masumi’s instant ramen. Itaru throws in a soda and some chips for himself too, just to maintain the snack-run ruse. Chikage buys an onigiri, because he admits that he hasn’t eaten tonight, and ducks out to scarf it down in the alley next to the 11/7. When Itaru finishes his shopping and heads out to meet him, there’s rice stuck to his bottom lip.

“That’s unfortunate,” Chikage says, once he points this out. “You’ll have to get it for me.”

“Don’t be a brat, senpai.”

“I’m injured. I don’t want to agitate the wound by moving any more than I have to.”

“Ugh. Fine, whatever, but I’m just saying: that’s definitely BS, and I’m only indulging you cause I don’t want to argue.”

Bracing for impact, acutely aware they’re still standing around outside a convenience store, Itaru puts the snack bag down and steps into his space. The light here paints in stark, impressionistic colours, layering Chikage in a palette of blues. The bleached blue-white of the streetlamps, that wash him out into something not quite real; the dark blues of the night, both in the alleyway, and the city beyond; the clear blue of his eyes. When Itaru reaches out to make contact, the shadow that he casts is an inky blue as well.

He brushes at the rice with quick but firm movements, trying to ignore the give of Chikage’s lip under his thumb. Chikage doesn’t quite lean into the touch, but it makes his eyelids flutter a little, and their tremors shake clean into Itaru.

And, after what feels like a million years of trying to dislodge the rice, it finally unsticks itself. “There,” Itaru says, and hopes that didn’t sound half as pitchy to his companion. “Gone.”

But when he tries to step back, Chikage goes with him. Slowly, deliberately, a clear statement of purpose; giving him time to scuttle away, if he wants to. And when Itaru doesn’t back out, he moves closer still, close enough that the faint heat of his breath catches on Itaru’s skin.

“Um.” Dammit, that one was definitely pitchy, but in Itaru’s defense, he can’t focus on anything besides the racing of his pulse. That, and the fact Chikage is close enough for them to be breathing the same air. “Senpai?”

“Hold still, Chigasaki.”

“Uh. Are we going to…?”

Chikage tips his head a little, gaze teasing but patient. “Do you not want to?”

“Oh, no, I do. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just, I’m definitely going to fuck up if you keep going. Cause I don’t have any experience with this kind of stuff, like, seriously zero, so I guess that’s your warning. Sorry in advance if I disappoint you.”

“You really do talk too much.”

“I mean, yeah, guilty as charged. But not too much that you don’t want to kiss me, apparently.”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I’m reconsidering that.”

“Hey, no, get back here –”

Itaru’s first kiss goes something like this: a blue summer night, a desperate lunge in a nameless alleyway, Chikage’s mouth open on a laugh as their lips make contact. The crumpling of a blazer under greedy hands, the taste of rice and vinegar – and then, suddenly, the dizzying absence of fear.

They separate slowly, with mutual reluctance. Chikage’s already watching him by the time Itaru opens his eyes, gaze like a clear mirror, and that makes him feel even more exposed. So he clears his throat and speaks up, mostly for something to do with himself.

“Okay, let’s hear it. You’re disappointed, right?”

“I’m not disappointed. But I do think I could teach you to do better.”

“Oh? Yeah, okay.” Itaru licks his lips, throws all caution to the wind. “Like, now?”

“Not now. Not when you still owe snacks to people back at the dorm.”

“I’m not buying that, senpai. We’re already super late, and you’ve already kissed me in this gross alley with your gross onigiri breath, so you may as well commit and do it again.”

“Should you really be telling someone you want to kiss that their breath is ‘gross’?”

“Okay, fine, I take it back. Your breath definitely doesn’t stink of fish and rice.”

“If you draw the line at me tasting of onigiri, I wonder if you’ll complain when –”

“Oh my god,” Itaru interjects, because he’s terrified of how that sentence will end. “Complaint withdrawn. Like, completely withdrawn. Kiss me again anyway?”

Chikage nudges his head up, a smile in his eyes. “All right. Then maybe something more like this?”

Needless to say, they don’t make it back to the dorm for a while.

*

Itaru wakes up, the next morning, to the sound of a light rain. Chikage’s slow, even breathing fills the room, which is unusual; they usually wake up in the opposite order, Itaru’s alarm going off long after his roommate has already slunk off to shower. But it’s hard to begrudge him his rest, especially when he’s sleeping off the effects of getting stabbed in the side. If, indeed, that’s what his wound is. It still seems better not to ask for clarification.

So he slips out of room 103 to call both of them in sick to work, and to message the Spring chat with an excuse about not making it to morning practice. As far as he’s concerned, Chikage isn’t going anywhere so long as he still has a knife-shaped hole in him – and, well, so long as he has unresolved emotional business with Itaru. Because it is unresolved; there are questions he still needs to ask, both about Chikage and about Chikage-and-Itaru, and he can’t let them sit much longer.

When he lets himself back in, it’s clear from Chikage’s breathing that he’s no longer asleep. It’s too deliberate, too aware of itself. So Itaru weighs up his options, discards all but one, and decides to open fire.

“Morning, senpai. Did I wake you?”

“Chigasaki.” His voice is scratchy from sleep; and his eyes, when he turns to face Itaru, are screwed up and exposed without his glasses. “No, you didn’t. I’ve slept long enough anyway.”

“Yeah, about that. I already phoned work and told them we’d both come down with food poisoning. From bad curry, or something. So you aren’t going anywhere, not unless you go through me, and I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“I suppose you think that was very clever of you. But our bosses are going to want evidence, you know.”

“You forged Guy a fake passport to smuggle him into Zahra. So it’s hard to believe your cheat skills can’t get us fake medical certificates, if it even comes to that.”

Chikage shifts under his blankets. “Fine. Then get up here. I should probably be resting, and I don’t want to shout across the room if I’m going to speak to you.”

That gives him pause. “Uh. If you’re sure?”

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Rather than have to admit, again, that he’s just stalling about something he wants because he’s nervous, again, Itaru takes the chance to climb the ladder to the other bed. He takes a seat at the foot end, and tucks his legs under him. The room feels different in the half-light, with the grey sky filtering in from outside; conspiratorial, like they’re meeting to discuss some secret business, under the cover of switched-off lights and drawn curtains. Across the bed, Chikage sits up to match him. He’s managed to find his glasses somewhere, which strikes Itaru as weirdly disappointing, even though it’s also more than fair of him to want to see who he’s talking to.

“Okay,” Itaru says, suddenly self-conscious about being in his space. “Good morning.”

“You said that already.”

“Well, it was going to be that or what are we, so. And it’s definitely too early to talk about that, cause you just woke up.”

“Not that recently. And, since you’re so eager to find out: what are we?”

“Hey, you don’t get to turn the question around like that. I definitely asked first.”

“Then let’s review the evidence. I told you I kept thinking of you, and you told me that you did as well.” True to his word, Chikage rattles it off with a perfectly straight face, even though Itaru increasingly feels like throwing a blanket over his head and never taking it off. “We agreed that we mattered to each other, so our feelings likely match. And you demanded I make out with you in an alleyway, even though you complained about my breath, because you couldn’t wait ten minutes to get home and continue there. What is it you think we are?”

It’s beginning to dawn on him, unbelievably slowly, that amongst the mingled stress and relief of finding Chikage injured but ultimately unharmed, he might have forgotten to bring up an important point. “And you’re sure that’s all I said?”

“Reasonably.”

“So I didn’t… tell you flat-out that I liked you, or anything?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Fuck.” Unfortunately, if they both recall last night the same way, it’s probably true. He buries his face in his hands, ignoring the mortified burn creeping up his cheeks. “I really did this backwards.”

“Maybe so,” Chikage agrees mildly. “But –”

Itaru takes a deep breath, and draws himself up. “No, I don’t want any more buts. Okay, then, to be honest: I like you, a whole lot. I like you a stupid amount, definitely way more than I should, and, I don’t know, I guess I want that to go somewhere. Your turn.”

“I feel the same, of course.”

“Come on. Give me a real confession, or at least make it sound like you mean it.”

“Fine. You’re… important to me, and I like you more than I should as well.” He makes a strange, helpless gesture. “I told you last night that my feelings for you didn’t make sense. But, even though they don’t, I want to find out what happens if I see them through. Is that enough?”

“It is if you meant it.”

“I did.”

Suddenly giddy, Itaru decides to allow himself the luxury of a recap. “So. I like you, and you like me.”

“That seems to be the case.”

“And I want it to go somewhere, and you want to at least see if it can.”

“That seems to be the case as well.”

“Okay. Alright. But if we do this, I’ve got a condition I need to lay out first. Same as when you moved in with me – well, this one’s actually pretty different, but the principle’s the same."

Even though they’re doing this in such a weird and roundabout way, Chikage’s expression is serious. “Let’s hear it, then.”

“Well, it’s – it’s about last night. What if you hadn’t come back?”

“There was no chance of that happening.”

“No, really. What if you hadn’t?”

And, for a long moment, Itaru gets no answer. He gets the sound of soft rain, filtering in from outside; he gets a shift in the room’s grey light; he gets the feeling he’s probably, definitely said something wrong; and he gets Chikage frowning down at his hands, for what feels like an eternity, until he looks up with an unreadable gaze.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “It never even crossed my mind.”

“Yeah, honestly, I thought not. So, listen to me. You said you want to keep everyone at Mankai safe. And I get that, I do. But… who’s gonna keep you safe?”

“Are you volunteering?”

“Yeah, actually. I am. Cause I know I’d be dead weight in a combat situation, but there are still things I can do. Like, you can tell me where you’re going, and I can come get you afterwards. I’ll even try and help patch you up, if you get injured again, although I’ll probably be bad at it, and just end up complicating things.” Itaru wets his lips, ignores the way his voice is threatening to crack. “But I don’t – I don’t want you to keep on doing this alone. That’s my condition. We’re on the same side, in every way that counts, or we go back to whatever we were.”

The silence that sets in is terrible; and, as it coils uncomfortably, he lets himself wonder if he’s asked for too much. If he’s allowed himself to get too greedy too early. But, at last, Chikage’s features relax. “You keep on surprising me.”

“Yeah, well. I’m not who I was when I met you, or when I joined Spring Troupe, or when we co-starred in the KniRoun stage together.” He manages a laugh. “Or even yesterday, I guess.”

“I’ll warn you now, though, that I might just disappoint you in the end. But in the meantime? I’ll take it.”

Itaru presses his lips together to stop himself from smiling, but it spills out of him regardless, too infectious to contain. “For real? Like, really for real?”

“Really for real.”

“Actually, uh. Before we get too far ahead of ourselves. It’s only fair that you have the chance to add conditions, too. I know I’m… me, and parts of that’re probably dealbreakers, so.”

“All right,” Chikage says. “In that case, I do have one.”

“Okay. Well. Let’s hear it, I guess.”

“I know we’re on the same page for now, but our relationship could still go south in the future. And, if it does… I don’t want to lose you for good. Let alone Mankai Company. So my condition is that, if things do fall apart between us, we don’t let it destroy everything.”

Actually, it’s kind of a relief to know that Chikage – cool, untouchable, almost-infallible Chikage – has worried about this too. To know that they’re both aware of everything they stand to lose, and not just everything they might gain. “It’s hard to make a promise about something that might not even happen,” he says, and his voice doesn’t shake at all. “But I feel the same. And I think we’ll be fine, because we’re always fine. Aren’t we?”

“...That we are. All right, that’s more than good enough for me. Thank you.” There’s a second where Chikage lets his gratitude show; but then he rallies, and his face returns to its usual expression. “Although I’m still reserving the right to add other conditions later on, of course.”

Itaru tosses up his hands. “I don’t know what I expected. But sure, whatever. The deal is sealed, senpai, and I guess now it’s you and me for good.”

“Then here’s my first added condition: if you’re going to consign me to bed rest until my wound’s healed, you should at least take responsibility for it.”

“Uh. What kind of responsibility are we talking, exactly?”

“Oh, all kinds. Eventually I’m going to send you to fetch me breakfast, and you’re going to entertain me while I convalesce. And you’ll have to make sure Spring Troupe don’t barge in to check on me, because I appreciate their feelings, but I’d rather not lie to them directly.”

“Classic,” Itaru mutters, because of course that’s become his problem.

“But for now: don’t you think you’re sitting awfully far away?”

Chikage eyes him across the length of the bed, which really isn’t very long at all. But the prospect of closing that distance seems much less terrifying than it did a few minutes ago; now that they’ve talked through their feelings, and their concerns. Now he knows that, even if it’s impossible to be certain about the future, at least they’re facing that fair unknown together.

“K. Move over, then.”

So Chikage folds his glasses and tucks them away, then shuffles towards the wall so he can rest on his uninjured side. Itaru crawls towards him, unbelievably aware of how the bed creaks under their weight, but also not at all able to be concerned. He slides under the covers, and they lie facing each other. It feels, strangely, like more or less what they’ve always been doing.

“Can I…?” His roommate – his boyfriend – cuts himself off, and tries again. “I mean. Is it all right if I hold you?”

“Yeah, go for it.”

He kind of expects Chikage to be forceful; to just grab him and reel him in. But instead, he’s surprisingly tentative as he makes contact, hand smoothing up Itaru’s spine like he’s something breakable. Figuring that he may as well do what he likes too, Itaru presses his palms to Chikage’s chest. By mutual, silent agreement, they scoot a little closer together. Beneath the sheets, their legs tangle like roots.

“So,” Itaru says, quietly delighted by their sheer proximity. “Are we gonna tell people about us? I mean, we probably owe Spring Troupe the truth, and I don’t feel like hiding it from them. But also, not sure I’m ready for that conversation just yet.”

Chikage’s mouth twists, but it somehow comes off as more fond than anything. “We should tell Spring Troupe, even though that does effectively mean telling everyone. If it helps, Sakuya already knows.”

“He what.”

“Well, I borrowed him for advice purposes, because I needed to talk to someone. Which shouldn’t surprise you, because you walked in at the end of that conversation. And so, when you left the room just now, I messaged him to say it had been resolved. He says congratulations, by the way.”

“So that’s why he was being weird to me at practice.”

“Not an awful type of weird, I hope.”

“Not awful, just kinda uncharacteristic. I think he assumed I was pining for you or something.”

“Well, were you pining?”

In answer, Itaru jabs him lightly in the shin. And Chikage winds a hand into his hair, makes a strange and honest face – like he can’t decide if he’s allowed to be tender about this, or to show it – and kisses him.

It’s entirely different from their kisses last night; slow, indulgent and lazy, like he’s melting from the heat and the intimacy. Their second kiss is much the same, but the third is a little more purposeful. By the fifth, Chikage is licking hungrily into his mouth, and by the eighth, Itaru’s somehow forgotten all his initial complaints about morning breath. But as much as he’s enjoying himself, it’s kind of difficult to focus on that at this angle. Things would probably go smoother if he didn’t have to crick his neck to hold his head off the mattress, or if they were sitting up, or if Chikage would just roll on top of him and –

Reluctantly, Itaru disengages. “You’re injured. We aren’t doing this.”

“Aren’t doing what?”

“Whatever it is you’re thinking, senpai.”

“I wasn’t thinking anything,” Chikage says. Which would probably be more convincing if he didn’t look so ravenous, or if he wasn’t still smoothing a thumb up Itaru’s neck. “Although, since you mention it, I’m really not as badly wounded as you think I am.”

“No, for real. It’s been like twelve hours, and I’m not gonna be that easy.”

“That just sounds like a challenge.”

“It isn’t.”

Chikage’s hand stills on his flank, and he gusts a sigh. “Sorry. I don’t mean to push you. It’s just that I… I’m not good at being still with someone, like this.”

“It’s cool. I like you better when you’re not so perfect, you know? And, I mean, I think this is nice as is.”

“Just to make sure: you’d tell me if it wasn’t?”

“Duh. I meant what I said, okay.” On a whim, Itaru bumps their noses together. It earns him a strange look, one he doesn’t know how to place, and he ducks his head in embarrassment. “Uh, sorry. Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Don’t apologise. You’re…”

“I’m?”

“It’s a secret.”

That elusiveness is typical Chikage, but it reads differently here; in the grey light of a lazy morning, wrapped up like this, breathing each other’s air. Differently, but not badly. Absolutely bizarre, to think that they’ve managed to wind up this way, that Itaru had managed to break the limbo of having a crush he could never admit to himself, solely because Muku had told him about a weird subset of KniRoun fanfiction –

Oh, god. Eventually Muku is going to find out about them, especially now that they’ve agreed to tell Spring Troupe, and Muku will know.

There’s only one way out of this, and that’s to bribe him. Itaru will buy that kid all the sweets and manga he wants, for the rest of his life, so long as he swears not to tell anyone. (And also, while he’s there, he may as well let Muku know that circumstances haven’t changed his feelings on pairing Lancelot and Gawain together.) But will that even work? He could still let something slip. Maybe he’s even let something slip already, and either way, it’s only a matter of time before everyone else could know about that, too…

“Chigasaki.” Chikage gets his attention by tapping their feet together, and he lurches horribly back to himself. “You zoned out for a moment there. Thinking about anything interesting?”

“Not really.”

“Hmmm.”

“It’s true. If it actually mattered, I promise I’d say something.”

“If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure.”

“All right. In that case, I think I’ll try and go back to sleep. I may as well bank a lot of hours while I can.”

“Sleep debt doesn’t work that way,” Itaru says, and then, because he may as well be honest even if he’s not being scientific: “Apparently. Even if it’s meant to be fake, that always works for me.”

Chikage’s fingers flex against Itaru’s back, and then slacken. Like he wants to say, stay, but can’t allow himself to admit as much. Then his breath issues from him in a rush. “I –”

“I’ll be here.”

“All right. Then – goodnight, Chigasaki.”

He nods. Chikage looks at him intently for a moment longer, as if burning the image into his brain, then closes his eyes; it’s not long before his breathing slows, evens out. His eyelashes are dark smudges, his mouth slightly ajar, and Itaru has to fight the urge to brush a thumb along his cheekbone.

Even with the day off work, there are thousands of things he could be doing right now. He has events to grind, materials to farm, storylines to play through, and streams to plan. But it’s hard to think of anything he’d rather do than rest, lulled to sleep by the rain and the warmth of Chikage’s skin. Maybe, when he dreams, they’ll see the same scenery; and when he wakes, they definitely will.

“I really like you,” he says quietly, again. Because he wants to, and because he can now, and because it’s the shadow of a bigger truth he’s only starting to see the shape of. A truth he hopes – he knows – they’ll discover together. “G’night, senpai. See you soon.”